#colonial forts

RICHMOND - Work on the new Richmond-Dresden bridge is starting, but a significant archaeological dig on one side of the bridge will be allowed to continue for at least another month.

Construction-related work is starting on the Dresden side of the bridge, allowing archaeological work at the former site of two colonial forts on the Richmond side to go on. That's good news for archaeologists who feared they would be forced off the site before they could fully document the rich source of new historical information they and volunteers have been working to uncover.

RICHMOND -- Leith Smith and Bill Burgess are digging for buried historical treasure in an otherwise typical, modern-looking front lawn overlooking the Kennebec River.

It's not a pirate's chest full of gold coins and jewels they're after.

The pair, state archaeologists, are digging for history, one shovelful at a time, working to document the site of one, and it appears likely two, Colonial forts.

They're documenting what they believe to be the site of Fort Richmond, which stood from 1740 to 1755, and an earlier fort they believe was on the same site as early as 1721. They're doing so to make way for a new bridge across the river between Richmond and Dresden.

"The main thing is to document it before it gets bulldozed away," Smith said of the artifacts and other evidence of the two old forts which gave settlers to the area shelter from the French and sometimes-hostile Native Americans.