In partnership with the Moses Brown School, a team led by Brown University students excavated a site on the East Side of Providence, formerly known as the Sack Property, from Fall 2015 through late 2022.

The piece of land was purchased by A. Albert Sack in 1884, when a house was built on the spot pictured below. An outbuilding is also visible at the southeastern corner of the property, where a large tree sits today along the Lloyd Avenue fence.

A. Albert Sack was the founder of the Lymansville Company Mill. He emigrated from Germany in 1866 and opened the mill in 1884. Sack lived in the house with his wife, Alice, until his death in 1925, and she remained there until her own death in 1933. Their son kept the house for an undetermined length of time after their deaths, and in 1939, the Moses Brown School bought the property. The house was demolished in 1940.

The Providence Housing Directory suggests that a number of craftspeople and individuals with professions like Sack’s (clerks, shoemakers, physicians, etc.) were living in this neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century. Historical maps of the area also show a large increase in the number of schools, and we know this was a period of expansions and prosperity for the Moses Brown School, as well.

Through this excavation, archaeologists discovered more about the material history of Providence, the Sack family, and the Moses Brown School in the early 20th century.

Site Directors:

  • Erynn Bentley, Director, with Liza Davis (Fall 2022)
  • Anna Soifer, Director, with Erynn Bentley (Fall 2021)
  • Anna Soifer, Director, with Max Peers (Summer 2021)
  • Alex Marko, Director, with Anna Soifer (Fall 2019)
  • Alex Marko, Director, with Evan Levine (Fall 2018)
  • Miriam Rothenberg, Director, with Alex Marko (Fall 2017)
  • Eve Dewan, Director, with Miriam Rothenberg (Fall 2016)
  • Catherine Steidl, Director, with Eve Dewan (Fall 2015)

Additional Information: