'Find excites area researchers' by Jeanne Williams/Temple Daily Telegram: Majolica pottery found in Milam County TX

                           Find excites area researchers
                                 by Jeanne Williams
                       Temple Daily Telegram - March 14, 2009

Dr. James Bruseth holds a fragment of Majolica pottery that
was found Wednesday at the suspected site of the Nuestra Senora
de la Candelaria mission near Apache Pass.
(Shirley Williams/Telegram)

APACHE PASS - A tiny shard of Majolica pottery lying on topsoil was reason for celebration this week.

Dr. James “Jim” Bruseth, Texas Historical Commission archaeology division director, declared the earthenware fragment a valuable clue to researchers eager to pinpoint the location of the lost 18th century Spanish mission Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, one of three that existed in the mid-1700s in southwest Milam County.

“Only Spanish missionaries would have dropped a piece of pottery at that site,” Bruseth said.

Pottery fragments, documents from archives in Spain, and data gleaned from Dr. Kathleen Gilmore’s 1969 archaeological expedition, plus magnetometer readings from a three-day site visit to Milam County this week will direct the historical commission team toward underground mission sites to be excavated later, Bruseth said.

Two historical commission crews were at work in the cold mist Wednesday morning; one team surveying a field off FM 908 using a magnetometer - a supersensitive metal detector that measures magnetism at 1 meter deep; the other excavating soil at the site scientists believe once housed the Candelaria mission.

The magnetometer can detect magnetic deposit in the soil by human habitation, and hopefully the presidio. The instrument detected magnetism but results were inconclusive.

The magnetometer scanned an open field off FM 908 Wednesday, detecting what archaeologists wanted to see - an acre-sized linear image in the shape of a rectangle that could be the site of the presidio, Bruseth said, adding that archaeologists were taking a conservative stand in determining if the magnetometer actually detected the presidio site.

Additionally, the scanner detected specific artifacts in the field. “We don’t know what they are, but they are there,” Bruseth said. The next step will be using a back hoe to dig at meter-depth to search for artifacts, he said.

The research Wednesday at the suspected Candelaria mission site yielded some relics ranging from the 1840s to the mid-20th century in addition to the 18th Century pottery fragment. Archaeologists at the San Ildefonso Mission encountered evidence that the soil had been disturbed and the hard ground was difficult to dig, he said. No artifacts were found at the suspected site, Bruseth said.

The team may return to the San Xavier Missions site in April or May, he said.

“There are future discoveries that will be made out there,” Bruseth said.

Dr. Gilmore, 94, a retired archaeologist and college professor, has some unfinished business at the San Xavier Missions. She returned this week as senior adviser on this week’s archaeological expedition and to satisfy a personal interest in Spanish colonial archaeology that has consumed countless hours of research at historical sites and in the archives of Spain. Dr. Gilmore said she would not have missed the latest site visit.

“Having done the original work for this, to find this site and understand it, she is indispensable and she knows all the history behind it,” Bruseth said.

Dr. Gilmore discovered the San Francisco Xavier de Horcasitas mission during an excavation in 1969, but archaeologists have yet to find the exact sites of the missions San Ildefonso and Candelaria.

“This area in Milam County is very important archaeologically in that we have three Spanish missions built here in the mid 18th century,” said Bruseth, who led the unprecedented underwater excavation in 1997 of the 1687-storm scuttled French ship Belle in Matagorda Bay on the Texas coast.

Historical documents placed Mission San Francisco on a hill by the third meadow beyond Apache Crossing; Mission Candelaria two gun shots from Mission San Francisco; and the San Ildefonso Mission one league down river east from San Francisco. The presidio was on the third meadow downstream from Apache Pass.

Archaeologists think “we know where they are, but we haven’t been able to verify, and we haven’t found the Spanish presidio,” Bruseth said.

The San Xavier Missions brought Christianity to numerous tribes of Central Texas Indians from 1746 to 1755 near the San Gabriel River, then called the San Xavier River.

Lipan Apaches not only were hostile to other tribes, but to the Spanish missionaries, and raided the settlements near the river crossing now known as Apache Pass. The San Xavier missions were closed and moved after conflict between the soldiers and missionaries, Apache raids, prolonged drought and diseases - becoming lost historical sites.

Renewed interest in the San Xavier Missions of Milam County was prompted by attention to the El Camino Real De Los Tejas Historical Trail - a 2,500-mile long corridor that linked Mexico City with Los Adaes, the provincial capital of Texas from 1722 to 1772, Bruseth said.

Majolica pottery found in San Gabriel, TX

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Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Photos by Shirley Williams -
Temple Daily Telegram photographer