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 In August 2004, Fever River Research conducted an archaeological survey of the
Sherrard Site (11JD713), a historic farmstead located in the Witowsky Wildlife
Area in rural Jo Daviess County, Illinois. The site lies within the Driftless
Region of northwestern Illinois, an unglaciated area characterized by steep,
rugged ridges intersected by narrow ravines and hollows. This region was noted
early on as a center for lead mining, and later on for its intensive dairy
industry. The Sherrard Site was settled in 1847 by Irish immigrant Thomas
Sherrard and was continuously occupied until 2003, when the property was
acquired by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR). For most of
this period (1847-1970), the Sherrard family resided there. The field
investigation involved an architectural assessment of the house and its
associated outbuildings, as well as a pedestrian and shovel-test survey of the
area immediately surrounding the residence. Despite the farmstead’s long
history, its built environment is largely a product of the middle twentieth
century, with most of the buildings having been constructed during the period
1935-1950. The residence at the site, for instance, was erected in 1936 on the
foundations of earlier dwelling built in circa 1870. However, there is an
extant 1850s-era timber-frame Three Bay English Barn at the site that has good
integrity and represents an excellent example of an early barn type in the
region. The survey also resulted in the identification of a number of earlier
archaeological features, which provided important insight into the structure of
the farm, and its related activity areas, during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. |
