ABSTRACT
Archaeology supplements our knowledge about the past in the sense that it might fill in gaps created by biased and incomplete records. Therefore archaeology may be the primary source of information about many people's lives. Because archaeological and documentary evidence are completely different types of evidence, it is not a straightforward matter to cobble them together to create a comprehensive picture of the past. Unfortunately, it is not all that unusual for such evidence to be ignored in favor of more fanciful stories. The objects bound for the mining towns are not quite what we might expect to find on the raucous 19th-century American frontier. Such an inventory challenges some Hollywood-inspired assumptions about roughing it on the frontier and also provides an important resource for researchers of frontier life and consumer culture. Saugus Iron Works, located just ten miles north of Boston, Massachusetts, was the site of the first successful ironworks in the English colonies.
