Eliza Clarkson’s sewing table, made in China circa 1849 of black lacquerware. It was owned by Eliza Clarkson of Gloucester, a ship’s captain’s wife whose husband died at sea. See it at Deerfield Archeology Day 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in Old Deerfield. Tours of the town’s Old Burying Grounds happen at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Eliza Clarkson’s sewing table, made in China circa 1849 of black lacquerware. It was owned by Eliza Clarkson of Gloucester, a ship’s captain’s wife whose husband died at sea. See it at Deerfield Archeology Day 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in Old Deerfield. Tours of the town’s Old Burying Grounds happen at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Credit: CONTRIBUED PHOTO

Eliza Clarkson was on a transatlantic trip with her husband when he unexpectedly died. The ship made an unplanned stop in the island of St. Helena, east of Brazil, to have a casket made.

A physical reminder of that story will be on display in Old Deerfield this weekend: Eliza Clarkson’s sewing table.

The table is part of what participants can see at Historic Deerfield’s Archeology Day, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The event includes two tours of the town’s Old Burying Ground on Albany Road, which contains the graves of slaves who lived, worked and died in Deerfied, including members of the Prince family.

Other graves there are of people who survived the 1704 French and Native American raid on Deerfield.

Tours of the graveyard happened at 11 and 2 p.m. Education program coordinator Claire Carlson leads.

At 2 p.m., Dr. Heidi Bauer-Clapp of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst talks about “Marginalized Memory: St Helena’s Archaeological Connection to the Transatlantic Slave Trade,”​

Eliza Clarkson’s sewing table may be viewed at 3.

All programs are free and open to the public. It’s part of Massachusetts Archaeology Month.