Abstract
Feasting is an important component in celebrations. Food and drink improve spirits and add a welcoming touch to events. At the end of the Revolutionary parades and feasts common throughout the year in cities and towns throughout the United States. The founding fathers struggled to keep the nation afloat and to unite an already heterogeneous population. By sponsoring public celebrations competing political factions won favor with the citizenry. Archaeological remains of celebrations are rarely identified. However, the Assay Site excavations in 1984 uncovered two large wooden box features containing unusually high concentrations of artifacts, and floral and faunal remains. One of the box contents was assigned to Cortland Van Buren, a Sachem of the Tammany Society and wealthy grocer. It is suggested that the faunal remains represent not only the remains of public feasts but also the Tammany Society’s political involvement in sponsoring celebrations through Van Buren.
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Notes
- 1.
New York City was then the temporary capital of the United States.
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Pipes, ML. (2013). Evidence of Public Celebrations and Feasting: Politics and Agency in Late Eighteenth-Early Nineteenth Century New York. In: Janowitz, M., Dallal, D. (eds) Tales of Gotham, Historical Archaeology, Ethnohistory and Microhistory of New York City. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5272-0_16
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