Page 138 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

keepers were only engaged in the trade at Charles Town before moving elsewhere or abandoning the practice entirely. The business of ordinary keeping was geographically fluid as people moved into and out of the trade. An ordinary was not housed in a specialized building. Rather these businesses were what Rhys Isaacs might understand as settings for action.48 Nowhere was this setting more promi- nent than at the courthouses and town landings scattered throughout the region.
Fourth, movement and discourse within the town progressed in a linear fashion along Mount Calvert road from the courthouse to the conflu- ence of the Patuxent and Western Branch and points in-between. The one exception to this is the dwelling at Beall’s Gift that is situated near a freshwater springhead some distance from the main road. This created a secluded dwelling space beyond the more travelled terrace fronting the Patuxent River. Simply put, towns in the early
modern Chesapeake were linear and structured as walking spaces. Along the main road, or “kings highway,” at Charles Town horses could race from the courthouse to the ordinary at the confluence of the Patuxent and Western Branch. People could stumble from the ordinary, to the courthouse, and back. This peripatetic landscape was one that the residents understood from the many English countryside hamlets.
Fifth, most of the buildings fronted the main road on the Patuxent side, and the distribution of artifacts at Terrace A, suggest that the space be- tween the buildings and the Patuxent River were heavily used for refuse disposal and social inter- action. The main road connected these nodes of activity. The living space of the town was that narrow strip between the river and the road. This may be an instructive spatial framework for oth- er similar towns in the region.
Sixth, the perfect alignment of buildings
figure 18
In situ pewter plate uncovered in the corner subfloor pit in Structure H, Terrace Site B.
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