Clayton Jones had married Frances Claxton at the end
of the previous year, and he was struggling to support his new family.
Fortunately, he was hired by the WPA to help excavate some old Indian
campgrounds down by the Tennessee River. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
wanted to see if they could extract some of the artifacts that were buried
there before the area was completely submerged or eroded by the construction of
Wheeler Dam.
2 The area was near the site of the old ferry that the
Hendrix family had used to cross the river just south of town when the century
was still young, and where the Whitesburg Bridge had been constructed just
eight years ago. The place was mostly flat, and it had largely been cleared of
any trees or undergrowth.
3 “You men will use these spoons and brushes to
extract the artifacts from the soil,” the archaeologist instructed them. “This
is fine work. It does not require brute strength. After all, we want to
preserve the things that you will help us to uncover,” he concluded. After
several demonstrations and a good look at some of the artifacts that had
already been uncovered, the men were sent into the trenches (they had
previously dug out large rectangular trenches with shovels).
4 Clayton was amazed at what they uncovered. There
were stone bowls, shards of pottery and arrowheads in abundance. Of course,
they had to immediately surrender all of their finds to the presiding
archaeologists to be cleaned, examined and catalogued; but it was fascinating
to briefly hold and examine things that had been fashioned by human hands in
ages past.
5 “I’ll be damned!” Clayton exclaimed. “These are
bones, human bones!” “Don’t touch those!” one of the archaeologists excitedly
shouted. He jumped down into the trench next to Clayton and began sketching the
arrangement of the bones.
6 “Get a camera over here!” he shouted to one of his
comrades. Clayton watched in disbelief as they carefully extracted the bones
from the soil. There was an entire skeleton here!
7 “I hope nobody’s diggin me up in a thousand years,”
Clayton chuckled to the man standing next to him. “Yeah, I know what you mean,”
the man agreed. “That shit’s kinda spooky.”
8 The money, however, overcame any scruples they had
about disturbing the bones of the people who had lived there before them.
Clayton was paid forty dollars a month, and that went a long way toward helping
to support his new family.
9 Although the excavation ended the following year, the work had seen them through a rough patch. And Clayton’s mechanical and electrical skills helped to keep them afloat after the TVA and WPA were finished with him.
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