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This report documents archeological field inventory at two early/mid-nineteenth century farmsteads at Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area in Summit County, Ohio. The farmsteads are currently known by the names of their primary, historic owners. Both the Brown/Bender and Hammond/Cranz farmsteads currently consist of clusters of buildings and a core area of farm land. Both farmsteads are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Fieldwork was conducted at the sites in 1994 in response to plans to adaptively restore the currently vacant structures through a historic leasing program. Data on the archeological resources of the farmsteads were collected for use in ongoing planning efforts. Project field methodology consisted primarily of interval shovel testing across the grounds adjacent to the existing buildings. Laboratory methods focused on developing data on artifact distribution for graphical presentation to assist planners in protecting and avoiding significant archeological deposits as the proposed restorations are undertaken.

Potentially significant archeological deposits and previously unrecorded, buried architectural features were recorded at both locations. The distribution of archeological deposits across the grounds at both farmsteads was found to be highly patterned. Subsurface deposits are associated with both extant and non-extant historic structures. At both farmsteads, prehistoric as well as historic materials were recorded. This situation is typical at Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area; early historic farms were commonly built on locations extensively utilized in prehistoric settlement systems.

The report summarizes the results of the 1994 archeological inventory efforts, with emphasis placed on the distribution of archeological materials across the project areas. Since data are primarily restricted to materials recovered through limited surface reconnaissance and interval shovel testing, the artifact collections from the sites are not analyzed in detail. Instead the artifacts are tabulated and considered in a more general fashion.