Presidents' house site dig begins

PHILADELPHIA, March 21 (UPI) -- Philadelphia officials began what the mayor called "digging for the truth" for the memorial to the first presidential home and the slaves who lived there.

While completion of the $5.2-million memorial to the house shared by Presidents George Washington and John Adams when Philadelphia was the nation's capital is months away, Wednesday's groundbreaking starts three to six weeks of archaeological research, the first ever done on that section of Independence Mall, the Philadelphia Inquirer said.

"We're digging for the truth about the start of this country and the great tragedy of slavery, which affects everything we do in this country today," Philly Mayor John Street told a crowd at the corner of Sixth and Market streets on Independence Mall.

Students from three Philadelphia high schools will participate in studying archaeology and historical interpretation of artifacts.

Michael Coard, a Philadelphia lawyer and organizer of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, said the ceremony was the culmination of a five-year campaign to get the National Park Service to include Washington's slaves in its commemoration of the President's House.

The public can monitor the dig's progress on site and by a Web camera, National Park Service officials said.