Page 26 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

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The St. John’s House under excavation with the floor joist trenches visible.
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thin clapboard have been nicely summarized by Garry Wheeler Stone with the expression “The Roof Leaked but the Price was Right.” This first post building identified in Maryland was originally built by Dutch merchant Simon Overzee, proba- bly as a storehouse for merchandise. The wall studs that held the siding were not fitted into a sill but had their feet buried in shallow postholes. This also suggests it probably lacked a wood floor. Later, this building in the front yard of St. John’s was convert- ed into a lodging space, as indicated by the addi- tion of a wattle and daub chimney on one end. All the other buildings identified at St. John’s were of earthfast construction, showing rapid adaptation to the realities of the frontier setting.10
Traditionally, excavators focused upon archi- tecture in colonial archaeology and St. John’s be- gan that way. However, Garry Stone understood that buildings did not stand in isolation but were linked together by yards, fences and walkways in cultural landscapes and it was vital to understand how Lewger and others had shaped the spaces around St. John’s. Beginning in 1973, he direct- ed some of the crew to examine smaller postholes
and trenches that began at the corners of the St. John’s foundations. These were fences and this represented the first explicit effort by archaeolo- gists to study a 17th-century colonial landscape. Digging these features indicated that St. John’s had been bounded by four types of fencing at different times.
The earliest was wattle fencing made by driving sticks close together in a line and weav- ing branches or thin wood strips between them. Such fencing had long been used in Britain, dat- ing back at least to Anglo-Saxon times. More common at the site were paling fences. These consisted of a narrow trench less than a foot deep and small postholes spaced 8, 10 or 12 feet along it. The posts supported a horizontal timber to which thin pieces of split wood called pales had been nailed vertically. The bases of the pales were placed in the trench and soil backfilled around them. This strengthened the fence and the buried section hindered wandering animals such as pigs from pushing under the fence and getting into re- stricted spaces, such as gardens or domestic areas.
Further from the house, a stouter fence type