Reverend John Lothrop (ca. 1644-1653) was the first European occupant of the property that later became the Sturgis Library and it was long believed that his house was subsequently incorporated within the walls of what is now the library. Archaeology in the 1970s by Plimoth Plantation failed to find any evidence of the 17th century occupation outside the house. Recent dendrochronological work by Michael Burry and the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory has dated some of the principle timbers in the oldest part of the building to the 1690s. The question became, where was Lothrop’s house? Using a combination of archaeology, documentary research, and architectural analysis, a working model of what happened to his house was developed. In 2014 we identified a number of timbers in the library that could date to his first house and we found artifacts definitely dating to before 1691 in the yard outside the house. In 2015, we continue the investigation of the Sturgis Library and its property through more archaeology and dendrochronology.
Sturgis Library 2014 Report Title Page