In 1997, archaeologists from the Kentucky Archeological Survey and the University of Louisville excavated a 16x16 stone foundation documented in the Rutherford watercolor as a one-story wooden cabin. Artifacts recovered from the site led archaeologists to believe the building was an early nineteenth-century dwelling. It may have been the cabin where the Speed family lived while constructing the main house, but for most of its history it probably housed members of Farmington's enslaved community. Artifacts generally associated with enslaved people were found there, including a blue bead and a 1725 Mexican coin pierced and scratched with an "X," markings archaeologists believed held religious significance for slaves. An 1865 site plan shows a "Negro family house" near the site of the modern gray barn, but no other information is available about the number or location of other slave cabins mentioned by James Speed in an 1863 interview.