Foundations of a Founding Father

John McCarthy, 24, a University of South Florida student sifts through what is left from the dig site that they believe is George Washington's boyhood home. George Washington moved to Ferry Farm when he was six years old and took over the farm after his father died before moving to Mount Vernon (Dominic Bracco II -- The Washington Post)

From a concentration of charred plaster, they can tell that a fire thought to have destroyed the house on Christmas Eve in 1740 was much smaller and less destructive. An expensive tea set dating to the last decade that the Washingtons lived in the house tells them that the family's financial strain suffered after Augustine Washington's death probably eased. And from the layout of the house, with the front door overlooking the river, they described a "literal crossroads" in Washington's life. Ships at that time could traverse the river to the Atlantic Ocean, and the area's roads were opening up a world to the West, Levy said.

"He has this whole world passing in front of him," Levy said. "He starts to understand the value of these roads, and that begins here."

Part of the difficulty with the dig arose because the land was far from untouched. Within the footprint of the house, 20th-century sewer pipes peek through the dirt, and a large area where the soil changes color reveals where Civil War troops dug a trench. In 1994, Wal-Mart proposed building a store on the property but encountered opposition from Stafford residents.

"It's sort of a miracle that as much as the building is left, considering all the bad things that happened to it," Muraca said.

Before finding Washington's home, the team spent four years unearthing two other structures, only to find that one was too old and the other too new. The last one, which dated to about 1850, a century too late, became nicknamed among the crew as "Daddy's little disappointment."

Three years ago, team members homed in on the site where they would discover the house. They found two stone-walled cellars, two root cellars and the remains of two fireplaces. They also unearthed 500,000 artifacts, many domestic in nature and dating to the period Washington's family would have lived there: sewing scissors, a brass wick trimmer, figurines that might have once sat on a mantel. A carnelian bead, which originated in India and made its way to Africa, was also discovered and is believed to have hung from the necklace of a slave.

When Muraca finally realized what they found, he said: "I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe for two days."

It's not like searching for the Titanic, in which a ship found underwater will have its name emblazoned on the side, Levy said. The confirmation comes in dismissing all doubts that the ship, or, in this case, the structure, could be anything else. It helped that by the time they found Washington's home, they had accounted for every other major structure on the property, he said.

The project, headed by the George Washington Foundation and funded by National Geographic and the Dominion Foundation, will eventually include reconstruction. The archaeologists also are hoping to find structures that accompanied the house, such as barns and slave quarters. They believe they have found a kitchen.

"The discovery is just the beginning," Muraca said. "It's like when NASA goes to the moon and picks up moon rocks for the first time. That's a really cool day, but it's not until you end up getting them in the lab that the real findings take place."