Page 55 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

the grass. More units uncovered portions of this brickwork and gradually a plan became apparent. It was a large building originally located by H. Chandlee Forman in 1937 but the precise loca- tion had been lost. The foundations of stone and brick told of a building measuring 40 feet wide and about 68 feet long, a huge structure for the period. The brick was not substantial, however, and seemed to represent not an all brick building but rather one with an added brick veneer to give the appearance of a brick structure, as was found at the Van Sweringen Council Chamber site. Ar- tifacts from the site pointed to a long occupation from the late 1630s to about 1700. These clues fit with it being the home of Maryland’s first gover- nor, Leonard Calvert. Later it was the residence of the third Governor William Stone in the 1650s and became Maryland’s first State House in 1662. This was a vital clue because the Calvert House was at the very center of the capital. Further sup- port came when the fencing evidence uncovered by excavators around the site was studied. Several of these matched the width of the Calvert House lot noted in a 1660s property deed.31
A final discovery that confirmed the build- ing’s identification came from an unexpected source — a septic tank. Not a 17th-century one but one relating to the 1840’s Brome House that stood partially over the Calvert House. The 1950s tank had failed and the archaeologists were called in to find and uncover the old tank to avoid more disturbance to the surrounding archaeology. This proved a success but the surprise came when many early 17th-century artifacts were found in the fill around the tank.
Excavations determined that the tank hole had cut into a long 17th-century ditch. The ditch
figure 41
Body armor (a tasset or skirt) from Pope’s Fort.
appeared to turn into a small circle and five feet from the inside edge of the ditch was the trench of a palisade fence curving in the same direction. We were perplexed but excavator Charles Fithian successfully read the evidence and said, “I think we have a fort.”
It was the moat of a previously unrecognized fortification and the curve was the start of a bas- tion. Armed with this knowledge, we examined other excavation units, dug test units and found a fort with three cannon emplacements. The moat yielded a range of artifacts including the first body armor found in Maryland, cannon balls, gun parts, a sword hilt, lead shot, gun flints, pottery, bones and other materials. There was no colo- nial round bottle glass in the fill, which became available after 1650. Instead, all the bottle glass was from flat sided case bottles. The tobacco pipes were mostly of Dutch origin and also dated to the mid-17th-century. We had found a fort and subsequent documentary research pointed to only one possible candidate — Pope’s Fort, named for the garrison commander Nathaniel Pope who occupied Calvert’s house.
The fort was built by Richard Ingle and his men in early 1645, following their successful sneak attack on St. Mary’s City in January of that year from his ship, The Reformation. Their attack was directly tied to the brutal conflict between King Charles I and Parliament called the English Civil Wars. Ingle supported the Parliamentary side and saw Maryland as both a royalist colony and one with Catholics, making it a valid target. He nearly destroyed Maryland in this action that was later
figure 40
Pope’s Fort ca. 1645 based on archaeology.
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