Archaeologists uncovered the remains of a summer kitchen at this site.

Summer kitchens were used to avoid heating the house while cooking during the warmest months. They kept cooking smells away from the house and reduced the chance of catastrophic fire. They also separated enslaved people from white plantation owners and their guests. Enslaved people worked in the summer kitchen and often slept there. 

Image below: Archaeologists excavate the site of the summer kitchen.
Right image: Archaeologists made this map of their excavations. It shows the locations of artifacts and remnants of the summer kitchen’s foundations.
Image: An illustration showing what the summer kitchen may have looked like. Illustration by Amy Broussard
Image above: Archaeologists found this cast iron pot lid, chain links, and pot hook at the site of the summer kitchen. Artifacts are not shown to scale.

What did archaeologists find here?

Archaeologists found the remains of a walk-in fireplace here as well as cooking implements and animal bones.

The Sellman family, who owned Woodlawn House, expanded the kitchen in the early 1800s and demolished it in the mid-1800s. When a driveway was added to the house in the early 1900s, erosion damaged the site and washed soils and artifacts downhill into a stream. 

Summer kitchens were centered on large fireplaces, used for cooking.
(Image: John S. Sfondilias/Shutterstock)

The Life of an Enslaved Cook

Enslaved cooks often were highly skilled. Their work required a talent for cooking as well as basic reading and math. These skills gave them greater prestige and more privileges than other enslaved people on the plantation. But they spent long hours working in hot, cramped spaces, and like other enslaved people, faced cruel punishments and mistreatment.
Image: An illustration of an African American cook, from Harper’s Weekly, 1856. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-42034