An eighteenth-century underground brick burial vault at Darnall's Chance was discovered in 1987 during an archaeological survey of the rear yard. It contained the remains of nine unidentified individuals. Evidence suggests the vault was built for James Wardrop, a wealthy Upper Marlborough merchant who built the large brick dwelling house between 1741 and 1742. The only archival reference to the vault is a 1788 deed referring to "the small square ground in the garden which covers the family vault" and granting heirs future access, but it does not identify those interred there. In 1990, an archaeological excavation was conducted to gather information for restoration and interpretation, and it revealed that the vault interior had been completely filled with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century household trash and building debris, probably dumped in from a nearby kitchen midden through two roof openings. Forensic scientists from the Smithsonian Institution assisted in recovering the human remains from the vault floor, and the skeletal remains were transferred to the Museum of Natural History for study and analysis. Thousands of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century household and personal artifacts were recovered, and the vault's interior was found to measure eleven feet wide, seventeen feet long, and eight feet high, reached by a stairway covered by modern wooden doors. The nine people interred there were identified as one adult male, two adult females, two children, and four infants under one year old, and stable isotope analysis of the five oldest individuals indicated that they were native-born Americans rather than immigrants. Numerous cavities and slight arthritis suggest a sedentary lifestyle with a sugar-rich diet and light workload. Mitochondrial DNA analysis and historical research identified the oldest adult female as Lettice Lee Wardrop, age fifty, wife of James Wardrop, and the other adult female as her sister Elizabeth Lee, age twenty to twenty-two. The thirty-year-old adult male was identified as Hancock Lee, Lettice Lee Wardrop's brother, who was interred in a wooden coffin and buried in the brick sub-crypt, while the remaining individuals were also interred in wooden coffins placed on bricks resting on the clay floor. Restoration of the roof, steps, and sub-crypt was completed in 2002, and the remains were re-interred in 2004.