Page 54 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

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Conjectural drawing of the Leonard Calvert House ca. 1644.
with the documentary evidence of a relatively modest European population from the late 1630s up until ca. 1660. Initially in the years 1634–1637, everyone lived within or near the fort. In 1637, people began dispersing to establish their own tobacco plantations along the rivers and creeks of Maryland. Sites from the second half of the 17th-century are far more abundant, reflecting the growth predicted by documents to have occurred to the city after 1660. The surface evidence showed that most of the buildings were made out of wood with only a little brick. Indeed, few brick or largely brick structures were apparent in any of the surveys.The only known buildings of all brick construction are the 1660s Chapel, the 1670s State House and Prison, and at the edge of the city, Philip Calvert’s great mansion of St. Peter’s, built ca. 1678. There is also one reference in a report by Royal Governor Francis Nicholson that the Jesuits had “a brick school of the human- ities” at St. Mary’s. Archaeology revealed that the Van Sweringen Council Chamber site had brick in association, but it was only used in chimneys and as veneer on an otherwise frame building. Compared to Jamestown, brick architecture was
rare at St. Mary’s. The archaeology tells that the city was mostly built of wood.30
Unlike Jamestown, Williamsburg, Philadel- phia or Annapolis, documents suggest St. Mary’s was a scattered settlement with minimal organi- zation or planning. However, there was one area that did have considerable development at the center of the city, and finding it would be a key step for the museum. Study of the remaining documents implied that this main crossroads was about 600 feet from the river. Surface collection over that area however failed to produce any evi- dence of major habitation. Instead, as one moved westward, closer to the St. Mary’s River, artifact density increased significantly. It appeared to be most intense in the location where an 1840s plantation manor house and associated outbuild- ings stood. This information was used to obtain a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1981 with the explicit purpose of finding the center of the first capital. Over the next four years, nearly 500 test squares were dug with this goal in mind.
Square number 12 came down upon a thin section of brickwork only a few inches below
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