Page 52 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

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beginning to use them in 17th-century England but this remained a distinctly elite practice. Philip, Anne and the baby appear to have been the first people in the region to be interred in lead coffins. In doing so, they tell us that they saw themselves as members of Maryland’s royal family, the son of a baron and the brother of another lord who was also the Proprietor of Maryland.
Analysis has continued for several decades and more insights are emerging from Project Lead Coffins. In October of 2016, it was an- nounced that the mystery of the baby had been solved. Due to a newly developed DNA method- ology by Harvard geneticist David Reich, it was possible to finally extract paternal DNA from ar- chaeological remains. Comparison of the samples from Philip Calvert and the baby revealed that they were genetically related, either as siblings or more likely as father and child. And the foren- sic specialist’s guess that the baby was a girl was wrong, it was a boy.26 This information along with a detailed pollen analysis allows their story to be finally pieced together.27 The evidence tells us that Philip Calvert had a young son born in late 1682 and Philip died in mid-January of 1683 knowing he finally had an heir. But sadly, the baby only lived a few more months and died in the spring of 1683.
Archaeology has yielded valuable evidence that, when combined with the forensics and doc- uments, gives us tremendous insights into the lives of three long forgotten 17th-century people. Through the excavations, they have become more than shadowy historical figures. They can be seen as real people who had successes and challenges in their lives not that different from today, allowing us to better identify with and understand them. Equally notable is the fact that the Calvert’s rep- resented the pinnacle of 17th-century Maryland society. Knowing about them provides a valu- able fixed point of measurement in compara- tive analysis when evaluating the remains of the many other women, men and children buried at the Chapel site and at other places in the colony. Philip Calvert not only served as governor and chancellor and chief judge of the colony, but was appointed as the first mayor of St. Mary’s City. What type of city did he and the other residents try to build?
Finding the Vanished City
Because nothing survives above ground of Maryland’s first city, there are only two means
of learning what it was like — documents and archaeology. But there are no surviving maps or detailed descriptions and since most land records were destroyed, we cannot discover what Maryland’s first city was like from documents alone. Neverthe- less, they can provide many important clues.
St. Mary’s was incorporated as a city in 1667–68 by order of Lord Baltimore, and Philip Calvert was made the first mayor. This is one of the earliest chartered urban places in English America and we know who some of the city of- ficers were. The first subdivision of land occurred in 1666 when a three acre tract was surveyed for William Smith. Later, people were encouraged to take up one acre lots, with the requirement that they build a 20 by 20 foot house on the lot with- in a year. The building contract for constructing a brick state house and prison in 1674 still exists. And one partial set of city by-laws from 1685 sur- vives. It speaks about penning hogs, maintaining the city streets, and problems such as “the great debaucheries and disorders...by drinking, gam- eing, sweareing...upon Sundays” in the taverns. But the only description is a cursory one written by Charles Calvert in 1678 in his report to the Board of Trade in which he says the town had little urban character and was a scatter of build- ings with not more than 30 houses besides his home and government buildings.28 His statement has long influenced historian’s evaluation of St. Mary’s. The virtual absence of land records in the years after Calvert’s description permits no eval- uation of later development from history, and any such activities underway were in any case abruptly halted in 1695 with the movement of the govern- ment to Annapolis. Thus, the only way to learn what the original capital of Maryland was like is by turning to the archaeology.
Oral history and local farmers indicated where some sites were but finding most of the early buildings required archaeological reconnais- sance. When the land thought to have been the main historic area of the city began being acquired in the late 1970s, survey began. The first effort in- volved re-plowing the fields and surface collect- ing in 10 foot squares after a good rain. While sites were found, it was soon recognized that the methodology needed improvement. Disking of the soil to break up clods and create more lev- el and uniform exposure was essential to achieve the best artifact recovery, several rains were need- ed to achieve good artifact exposure, and more than one person needed to cover each square as