Explorers look at frontier life in biracial town

Here is an article from the Rockford Register Star

 COLUMNIST: Aaron Chambers
Explorers look at frontier life in biracial town

Amid the rolling hills of rural Pike County, southeast of Quincy, Frank McWorter was the first African-American believed to incorporate a town in America.

It was 1836 and McWorter was a freed slave who bought, subdivided and sold 42 acres. He called the town New Philadelphia and, in a home just outside it, he lived out his time.

The town's population grew to more than 160. It was said to be home to a blacksmith and a handful of other craftsmen. And despite the racial tension that underscored antebellum America, the town was home to both whites and blacks.

On Wednesday, more than a century after the town of New Philadelphia began disappearing, debate continued over just what all that means.

"IS NEW PHILADELPHIA about one man, Frank McWorter?" asked Paul Shackel, a University of Maryland anthropologist who is leading an excavation of the site.

"Is it about the African-American community and its ability to survive for 100 years in a racist society? Is it about freedom? Is it about race relations in a biracial town? Or is it about the other people that are not recorded in the historical records? My answer is: I think it's all of the above."

Shackel was discussing the latest phase of the excavation with folks gathered at the Illinois State Museum's research facility in Springfield. He narrated a slide show and discussed various artifacts that were uncovered, including a fork, buttons, a miniature tea set and dozens of nails.

Some of these treasures, chunks of ceramic pottery, were uncovered by Rockford's own Gail Kirk, who was among a group of University of Illinois at Champaign students who helped search for artifacts.

"You can date fairly accurately according to that," the 20-year-old anthropology major said of the ceramics. "That's why ceramics are so interesting, especially the ones with intricate patterns on them. You can figure out who made them."

SHACKEL WENT ON at length about the town's biracial dynamics and its supposed racial harmony. He said he hoped the excavation would help complete the town's social history.

The audience was engaged.

"I still think there's a huge gap here," said Elizabeth Crowley, a retired college English teacher from Jacksonville. "How do so many rusty nails and toy pewter sets give you any insight into justice?"

Shackel said archaeologists ought to be flexible in their thinking as they build a record of the town. "I think we need to move beyond what we already know," he said.

A man in the audience asked Shackel why, if racial tension was so heavy, would whites move to a town founded by blacks?

"I think that racism did exist," Shackel responded. "But I also think that people worked together in the community to move ahead, especially during the frontier era. People had to band together in order to survive and people relied on each other."

Shackel and his team intend to continue digging next year. The provocative questions about that time -- and what it may help reveal about this one -- appear to have just begun.