Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 9

Table Glass Excavated at Fort Amherst, Prince Edward Island

by Paul McNally

Conclusions

Although archaeological investigation of the site is incomplete, the history of Fort Amherst is outlined by the artifacts recovered during the excavations there: the dates established for the table glass recovered from the site coincide with the 1758 to 1771 period during which the fort is known to have been occupied. It is impossible to make positive conclusions on the basis of the presence or absence of certain types of table glass when a site has been only partially examined and when only a small collection of glass has been recovered, yet a clear image of juxtaposed life styles can be discovered in the table glass collection from Fort Amherst, an image which is reinforced by the ceramics collections and by archaeological and historical evidence. Glass was not extensively used at the fort, and that which was used belonged to a privileged segment of its population or to the subsequent tenant of the site, Chief Justice Duport, in 1771.

Wider conclusions reflecting trade and military supply patterns in the maritime colonies are necessarily dependent upon the above hypothesis and are therefore still more tenuous; however, table glass styles at Fort Amherst, as at the Fortress of Louisbourg in its English periods, were certainly in step with English metropolitan fashion as it is recorded in collectors' histories.