Naper cabin foundation is unearthed
A team of archaeologists and Naper Settlement staff members believe they've discovered part of a stone foundation that supported the north wall of a log cabin built by Naperville founder Capt. Joseph Naper.
Workers had discovered a cellar last summer during a two-week dig at the site at the southeast corner of Jefferson Avenue and Main Street.
They launched another two-week excavation Aug. 6 with Don Booth, senior archaeologist with SCI Engineering Inc., in hopes of discovering more conclusive proof of the cabin built in the 1830s.
That discovery came Tuesday when workers unearthed part of the foundation that Booth believes served as the base of Naper's cabin. Booth said he believes the structure would have been about 16 feet by 9 feet.
"We are confident this is the location of his log cabin," said Debbie Grinnell, director of preservation services for Naper Settlement, the city's 19th-century living-history museum.
Booth, who has more than 20 years of experience at both historic and prehistoric digs, said the discovery "will provide a nice window for the people of Naperville to see what life was like at that time."
Booth and Grinnell said they based their conclusions by matching physical evidence at the site with some of Naper's papers, including his will. Booth said materials excavated from the area around the stone wall date to the 1840s.
This year's dig is scheduled to end Thursday. Booth said the team will map all of its discoveries, cover the site in plastic and then backfill it.
"It's our recommendation to leave it in place for future generations," he said.
Grinnell said the cabin's discovery is especially significant because of Naper's role in the city's history.
"Not only was he a member of the founding family of Naperville," she said, "but he was a man who had a vision of bringing a group of people with him to create a town."
Booth said most such excavations involve pioneer farms, "but this is totally different. Capt. Naper came here to create a town."
The team also found a fully intact clay pipe that it believes dates from 1860 to 1880 and was manufactured in England.
In addition, workers found a Russian trading bead from the early half of the 19th century that they believe indicates Naper set up a trading post shortly after he arrived.
Naper founded what is now the state's fourth-largest city in 1831.
No one is certain why he left his home in Ashtabula County, Ohio, and his profession as a ship's captain to settle the community that came to bear his name. But he and his brother, John, brought about 60 people with them to start the town by building a sawmill, grist mill and trading post.