Page 22 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

figure 5
One wall of the chiseled and shaped stones lining the
St. John’s cellar.
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liquor into the cellar.The cedar had been preserved near the bottom of the ramp because that soil had remained moist and cedar is a tough, durable wood. The timing is interesting because it was around this period that St. John’s began serving as an ordinary or public inn.
As the house was fully uncovered, something else appeared that was unexpected. Narrow par- allel trenches about 2.5 feet apart were observed running through the soil between the foundation walls. These held the mold or organic outline of timbers that had been set into these trenches. As one of the field school students excavated a trench, her trowel began hitting something hard. We in- structed her to leave it alone and continue working.
Soon she reported another hard spot, and then a third and a fourth. They were in a line and close inspection showed that these were actual- ly handmade wrought nails, standing upright in the dark soil of the timbers. These timbers were trench laid floor joists and the nails had held the floor boards attached to the joists. The flooring planks had rotted away, leaving the nails still standing where a colonial carpenter had driven them three centuries before. The nail distribution showed that the floor boards measured from 11 to 14 inches in width. Traces of one board protected by a layer of mortar next to the hearth of the later chimney shows that they were made out of pine.
The most notable thing about this discovery is that it is the transfer of an ancient English con-
struction practice to America. It also shows the lack of familiarity with the North American envi- ronment, specifically, the presence of termites that are not found in England. By laying the joists in the soil instead of having them raised above the ground as we would do, a feast was created for termites. As the joists decayed, the floor boards settled, and with time, all the boards disintegrat- ed, leaving the nails standing where they had been driven. This construction method has only been found one other time in the region, at a building in Jamestown. In adapting to the new environ- ment, some traditional practices were found to be inappropriate, and this was one of them.
The archaeologists uncovered a building that measured 52 by 20.5 feet with a center H-shaped chimney. The front door was opposite the chim- ney, creating what was called a lobby entrance. Garry Stone and historian Cary Carson conclud- ed that Lewger had built for himself a fashionable dwelling called a Hall and Parlor house that was common in eastern England in the first half of the 17th century.
The St. John’s house was a direct transplant of a British architectural form to Maryland, using the same plan and construction methods found in better English farm houses. It involved the broad axing and adzing of large timbers, the cutting of numerous mortice and tenon joints, and incor- porated very expensive features such as wood- en floors, plastered walls and glass windows. In