Ancient peas unearthed beneath Market Square

Local News - Wednesday, April 20, 2005 @ 07:00 Preserved, 140-year-old peas, uncovered by archeological investigators behind City Hall, may portend greater finds to come. This week, excavators cracked open the asphalt of the Market Square lot, as part of an archeological investigation that prefaces reconstruction of the square. Diggers unearthed ancient peas that survived a spectacular fire that razed the market wing of City Hall in 1865. Although burned in the fire, they were neatly preserved through fossilization and once held in a stoneware crock, which lay around the the peas, shattered. â??The butchers and everybody had stored their food in that building,â? said Nick Gromoff, the archeologist who found the peas Monday afternoon. â??And I thought of this as dried peas being stored for winter.â?

On Jan. 10, 1865, the market wing of City Hall burned in a dangerous blaze, with winds feeding the flames so powerfully that they nearly leaped to the main City Hall building on Ontario Street. The town major had been prepared to explode a gunpowder mine to collapse the market building and extinguish the fire, according to a briefing report on the dig by the Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation. The winds slowed, however, and the fire brigade was able to contain the damage to the market wing. The fire left only a shell of limestone walls, which had become fragile from the heat of the flames and had to be pulled down.

Itâ??s over those burned remains that staff from the archeological foundation began exploring Market Square on Monday. They hope to piece together a better idea of how the market was set up and what goods were available, said Sue Bazely, head of the exploration.

â??Weâ??re getting evidence of the things that were being sold,â? Bazely said. Gromoff found the peas just under the paved surface, which construction crews have been removing for about a week. He thinks there was a deep cellar under the market wing, and that after the fire, crews collapsed the wreckage, filling it up. â??The building burns, the roof caves in and all thatâ??s left is the shell,â? Gromoff said. If this is the case, there will be more, still salvageable parts of the building under the ground. They would be of great importance, he said, because historians know little about the market or the buildingâ??s architecture. The crew may even find remains of the original clock tower that topped the wing. People of the time probably salvaged the bells, Gromoff said, â??but who knows?â?

Market Square has served as a market since 1801. After buying the lot from the Crown in 1840, the Town of Kingston laid out ambitious plans to build a city hall on the property, the foundation says. In its time, Kingston City Hall was such a large and grandiose structure, historians speculate that its architects hoped it would become the home for Parliament in the future capital of Canada. In their planning for the building, local magistrates stressed that the town needed a shelter for market vendors. In 1834 it was to be called New Market House. â??The building, which will be cut of stone, will contain 28 stalls and as many butcher shops,â? said one announcement from the district magistrates, according to the foundationâ??s report. â??The upper floor is to be partly occupied as a commodious Town Hall.â? City Hall was completed in 1844.

Old photos of the market wing show it stretching right up to King Street, where vendors now occupy a slot of pavement in front of the fenced-off archeological dig. The building had several levels, Bazely said. Vendors selling meat and dairy likely would have occupied the cellar stalls where it was cooler. Where thereâ??s historical evidence to be found, the crew will continue to dig, she said, but she doesnâ??t expect to go below two metres in the deepest areas. There may be evidence of early settlements by the French or even Aboriginal Peoples, says the foundation. In its test digs in 2002 and 2003, Bazely said, the crew found oyster shells and sheep feet that would have been sold at the market. The crew hopes to finish its excavation by the end of May.

As part of the cityâ??s $5.4-million plan to revitalize the the square, construction crews will then take over to build an outdoor skating rink and and expand the vendor area. The rink is scheduled to be ready for next winter. Before that, however, the archeological foundation may have a burned up piano or two to find from the marketâ??s piano merchant. â??Apparently,â? said Bazely, â??there was a grand piano in there.â?