The bulldozer let out a deep hum as it scraped up the first chunk of top soil from the old Lumpkin's Jail site in Shockoe Bottom.

Richmond City Councilwoman Delores McQuinn (7th) smiled at the sight. Standing with members of the city, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods, she watched Wednesday morning as more than two years' worth of work began to show.

"Finally! We're at this point," said McQuinn, who is the head of the Richmond Slave Trail Commission. 

"It's taken a great distance to get here, but we're not sprinters," she told the small group that gathered to watch the first layers of dirt removed in preparation for the archaeological dig.

"This is a project that's absolutely necessary to tell the story of Richmond's history, and this country's history. Today takes us beyond just telling a story. It helps us understand a culture and honor the ancestors of the past."

For the next eight to 12 weeks, about five to six archaeologists will be sifting and sorting through the soil in the 80 feet by 160 feet lot, which is about one-third of an acre, just behind the old Main Street Station with I-95 traffic buzzing overhead. Though part of the old jail is believed to be under the interstate, the dig is not expected to affect the road.

The jail, which sat upon a half acre of land known as "Devil's Half Acre," was the largest slave trade site outside of New Orleans before it was liberated during the Civil War in the 1800's.

Robert Lumpkin was the owner of Lumpkin's Jail, a two-story brick house with barbed wire windows, and where hundreds of thousands of slaves were housed as they brought into the country and sold to slave owners.

Lumpkin eventually fell in love with one of his slaves, Mary, whom he freed and married and left the property to when he died. She later leased it to a man who began teaching freed blacks and that school grew into what became Virginia Union University today.

When the James River Institute of Archaeology did the initial test trenches two years ago to confirm the site was indeed Lumpkins', they found the remains of a house foundation and a road trail.

After the first eight to 10 feet of dirt is removed, archaeologists will begin hand excavation, said Matt Laird, senior researcher with the institute. Found artifacts will be catalogued and stored at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

"My hope is that generations to come will say we were a generation who cared," McQuinn said. "I hope it won't be as difficult for them."