DeRossett-Johns

​​​​​​​​​​​In 1989, archaeologistsfrom the University of Kentucky's Program for Cultural Resource Assessment uncovered the remains of an early nineteenth-century house, one of the first built in the community of Prestonsburg.  They also found artifacts linked to the DeRossett and later Johns families who had once lived there.  The work was undertaken n advance of the construction of a new city park.​

Solomon DeRossett built his initial home around 1820​ house on a terrace overlooking a bend in the Big Sandy River.  It was a two-story log structure.  Later, frame additions were built onto the structure, making it one of the largest houses in the community.  

Solomon DeRossett was one of the first to settle the area, where he operated a ferry on the nearby Big Sandy River.  He also was a road surveyor and served as a Justice of the Peace.  Following his death in the mid-1830s his daughter Annisetta DeRossett Wood inherited the property.  She in turn sold it to Hugh Harkins in 1853.  Harkin's son-in-law, John G. Johns bought the property around 1874.  The House remained in the Johns family until  it was purchased by the City of Prestonsburgh in the 1980s.  

The archaeological remains from this house site provided insights into the history of Prestonsburg and the DeRossett family's way of life in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.​​​​

​Certainly Not A Backwater

During the early 1800s, Prestonsburg and Floyd County were rather isolated from major inland cities and East Coast ports. Thus, it is easy to assume that people living in Eastern Kentucky, like the DeRossetts, had limited access to goods, especially to fine dishes.  The cost and danger of shipping fragile goods into the mountains, like dishes, and the apparent lack of a market for these items would seem to limit the amount of such goods being available to residents.  

But the archaeology tells a different story. Ceramic dish fragments found at the site show that the DeRossett family had access to and were able to buy many of the most fashionable dishes of the early 1800s.  This family living in far Eastern Kentucky used the latest dish styles and participated in the same dining etiquette as families living in more cosmopolitan cities. ​​

Dec​orated ceramic smoking pipe bowls.