Monticello Archaeologists Unearth 250-Year-Old Brick Kiln

Archaeologists at Monticello weren't expecting to find history under a planned shuttle stop, but that's exactly what happened when they uncovered a 250-year-old brick kiln this March.

The discovery reveals how workers built Thomas Jefferson's first home on the Virginia mountaintop in the early 1770s. Crystal O'Connor and Fraser Neiman, who lead archaeological research at the site, announced the find after initial excavations revealed layers of brick rubble that turned into something much bigger.

As researchers dug deeper, they found brick segments running parallel to each other, separated by channels filled with overfired brick fragments. When they cleared the rubble, they discovered soil underneath that had been burned "brick hard" by intense heat over two centuries ago.

The kiln worked like an enormous oven. Workers would build walls of bricks to form fire channels, fill them with wood, then carefully stack unfired bricks on top of the entire structure. Over several days, the blazing heat transformed soft clay bricks into the hardened building blocks that became Monticello.

Dating the kiln proved easier than expected. Archaeologists found specially molded bricks with neoclassical shapes that Jefferson only used while building his first home, Monticello I, in the 1770s.

The kiln may have been operated by free workers like George Dudley or William Bishop, or by some of the more than 600 people Jefferson enslaved. Researchers have found other kilns downhill near a stream, suggesting Jefferson later moved brick production closer to essential resources like water and wood.

The Ripple Effect: This discovery is part of a much larger story Monticello researchers are working to tell. The team is surveying Jefferson's entire 2,500-acre property to locate every archaeological site, creating a complete picture of everyone who lived and worked there.

Recent projects include investigating Jefferson's indoor plumbing system, restoring a room Sally Hemings may have used, and studying pottery fragments created by enslaved people. Each discovery adds new chapters to stories that have waited centuries to be told.

Monticello welcomes half a million visitors each year to a site researchers call an "archaeological sandbox." O'Connor says the constant discoveries remind us that understanding the past is never finished.

The brick segments lying under the East Lawn connected real people to one of America's most iconic buildings, and now their work is visible again after 250 years underground.