Samuel Ball Foundation (Lot 25)

About This Structure

The stone foundation on Lot 25 marks the home of Samuel Ball, the formerly enslaved Black Loyalist who settled on Oak Island in 1787 and by his death in 1845 owned nine of its four-acre lots, more than anyone in the island's history. It sits on the western shore overlooking the mainland, and the stonework has stayed visible above ground long after the house itself was gone.

In Season 7 the property was surveyed with ground-penetrating radar under a heritage permit held by Laird Niven, the archaeologist who oversees digging on the island. The scan, run by radar specialists Steve Watson and Don Johnston, showed two buried features resembling walls. The excavation that followed exposed stacked stones concealing a void and a small tunnel-like opening, recorded separately as the Man-made Stone Tunnel, along with an old chest hinge with square nail holes found by conservator Kelly Bourassa.

In Season 8, Niven and fellow archaeologist Liz Michels excavated the foundation itself. At the cellar's dirt floor they found a small metal hinge and pieces of wood with a crosspiece that appeared to form a hatch or doorway. Gary Drayton, the team's metal detection expert, judged the hinge too small for a cellar door and more likely from a chest or box. Sifting spoil near the northwest corner of the house, Alex Lagina, son of co-owner Marty Lagina, found a gilded British Royal Navy officer's button of 1804 to 1825. Drayton's searches around the foundation produced a copper coin of the 1730s or 1740s, a crown-and-rose topper from a cane or swagger stick, a lead splash from casting musket balls, and a flat button of about 1750 to 1850.

The foundation is the only standing trace of Ball's sixty years on the island. Most of what came out of it fits a household of his period. Whether a few pieces, the naval officer's button above all, point to visitors or dealings beyond farming is a question the excavation raised and left open.