Hidden history uncovered in dig on South Farms site

CHAMPAIGN – Just before the Civil War, Simon and Catherine Percival spent a decade scratching a farm out of treeless prairie south of Champaign.

For decades, their homestead lay under a horse pasture in the University of Illinois South Farms. What's left of it, mostly a cellar, was being dug up and cataloged Thursday by a trio of UI archaeologists.

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