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the county court was to rename the site Charles Town, though the site would continue to be called Mount Calvert sporadically in the documentary record.
Charles Town developed into a central meet- ing place around the courthouse and an Anglican church during the early years of the eighteenth century. Stores, ordinaries/dwellings, warehous- es, and other structures were in place by the first decade of the eighteenth century. Charles Town developed rapidly between 1700 and 1710, followed by a gradual decline after about 1715. Other towns along the Patuxent River were thriving at the same time that Charles Town was in decline.
The last major legislative act to create towns in Maryland was passed in 1706. This act reaffirmed Charles Town’s status as a town, while creating four new towns along the Patuxent and its tributaries. Marlborough (now Upper Marlboro), Nottingham, Queen Anne, and Mill Town, formed a network of collection points for Maryland tobacco, and meeting places for Prince George’s County citizenry. In 1718 a group of citizens petitioned the House of Burgesses to relocate the court from Charles Town to Marlborough, essen- tially issuing the town a death sentence. The court met for the first time at Marlborough in 1721 marking the end of Charles Town’s existence as a functioning town. Services were held at the Anglican church until at least the 1740s, there was an intermittent ferry to Anne Arundel County, and an ordinary still served the traveling public, but there is little evidence in the historical or ar- chaeological record to suggest that Charles Town functioned as anything more than a landing for offloading goods bound for Marlboro after 1721.
Keepers, Tradesmen, and Merchant
Politicians: Economies of Charles Town
In her article on Charles Town, Louise Joyner Hienton introduces many of the people who may have lived in, or otherwise conducted regular busi- ness in the town.7 Today, visitors to Mount Calvert Historical and Archaeological Park occasional- ly ask how many people lived in Charles Town. The regular population of Charles Town is diffi- cult to estimate. Part of the problem is that many slaves and tenants probably lived in the town, but are poorly documented, or entirely absent from the historical record. Ordinaries also doubled as dwellings and the use of buildings changed over
time making the assignment of function and occupation, difficult to determine. A few indi- viduals were confirmed as living in or directly adjacent to Charles Town. A small group of merchant politicians and a larger group of ordinary keepers are the most visible individu- als involved in the construction of buildings and discard of material culture in the town.
Merchant Politicians and the
Economic Expediency of Towns
Speculation is a common term used to summa- rize the European re-colonization of the Ches- apeake, town development, and associated land grabs. Seating the courthouse at a particular locale provided an opportunity for well-positioned indi- viduals to increase their social, political, and eco- nomic capital. Many politically well-connected individuals had a mercantile interest in sustaining the court at Charles Town, and the town faltered without their support. Robert Bradley, Thomas Hollyday, and David Small were three individuals who lived nearby and had mercantile and politi- cal interests in Charles Town. London merchants dominated the tobacco trade along the upper tidal Patuxent during the late seventeenth century.
Bradley was an agent for merchants Edward and Dudley Carleton, Thomas Hollyday was a factor for Peter Paggen, and David Small worked for Joseph Jackson. The Carleton firm was one of the largest tobacco trading companies at the time, and Bradley prospered from the relationship, eventually establishing himself as a prominent in- dependent merchant. Land records clearly place Bradley’s dwelling south of the town, but the pre- cise location has not been confirmed through ar- chaeological survey.8 Hollyday may have realized similar independence had he not died in 1703, less than a decade after constructing his dwelling at Billingsley Point just north of Charles Town. David Small joined captain Thomas Emms in a short-lived partnership at the end of the seven- teenth century. By 1697 Small and Emms held the lease from William Groome on much of the unimproved land within Charles Town, but nei- ther of these individuals lived on the property. Small owned and probably lived on a parcel west of the town and it appears that Emms never set- tled in Maryland. Small and Hollyday are known to have kept store houses within the town, but the historical record does not clarify the location of Bradley’s store.