Photo: UNC archaeologist Trawick Ward standing over the exposed stone drain at South Building
In 1992, construction crews exposed part of Elisha Mitchell’s stone drain beneath the brick walkway in front of South Building, while excavating a trench to install new utility lines. Stone rubble from the drain was exposed at the base of the construction trench and was quickly mapped and documented by UNC archaeologists Vin Steponaitis and Trawick Ward before the excavation was filled in.
A letter from Mitchell to President Swain in 1844 provides compelling evidence that Mitchell was involved in the design and orientation of the drains themselves. South Building was experiencing drainage problems, and Mitchell, not agreeing with the proposed solution, devised his own plan that he presented to Swain complete with illustrations. Like most construction projects on the antebellum campus, these were executed with slave labor, sometimes that of Mitchell’s own slaves.
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