Stitch by Stitch: Uncovering the Past Through Textiles
CIAMS M.A. student, Sarah Orsinger, analyzes the largest textile found to date at St. James AME Zion Church.
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Beginning in 2021, CIAMS faculty, in collaboration with Gerard Aching (Cornell Africana) and Reverend Terrance King (St. James AME Zion Church), launched a new community engaged initiative to explore the history of the St. James community. The St. James AME Zion church building was constructed during the late 1830s and is today the oldest AME Zion church in the world still in active use. The building is known to have been the most important Underground Railroad station in Ithaca during the 1840s and 1850s. Harriett Tubman is known to have spent time at the Church and Frederick Douglass also visited.
We conducted excavations over the course of four fall field seasons, from 2021-2024. In each season, our excavation team included community members and Cornell students and faculty. Our goal has been to use archaeology as a means to help the Church and wider community tell empowering stories of St. James's past. We hope to inspire all participants to learn more about their community and its rich history.
Our fourth and final season of community excavations concluded in the fall of 2024. The work of artifact processing, cataloguing, and analysis is still ongoing.
On June 19, 2025, we opened a new exhibit on the archaeology of St. James at The History Center of Tompkins County. The exhibit will be on display in the atrium gallery until December 31, 2025.
We encourage you to take the CyArk tour of the church and watch the video below created by Historic Ithaca:
