Page 67 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

KEY TO THE MAP ON FACING PAGE
Dates of
Site Occupation Owner Occupant Archaeological Investigations
Old Chapel Field (18ST233) 1636-1660 Jesuits Priests, servants, slaves 20 5 x 5 ft test units; feature sampling9
St. John’s (18ST1-23) 1638-1710 John Lewger Lewger, family, servants Unavailable10
St. Clement’s Manor (18ST794)
1640-1672 Thomas Gerard Gerard, family, servants Shovel tests; 3 5 x 5 ft test units11
Stevens Plantation (18CV279) 1651-1685 William Stevens Stevens family until ca. 1665, then 165 2.5 x 2.5 ft test units; feature excavation12 unidentified tenant
Patuxent Point (18CV271) 1658-1695 Unknown Unknown 73 5 x 5 ft test units; feature excavation13
Richard Smith, Sr. (18CV91) 1658-1689 Richard Smith, Sr. Smith, Sr., family, servants Controlled surface collection14
Fair Fountain (18CV4) 1660-1690 Josias Fendall Tenant of Fendall 14 5 x 5 ft test units15
My Lord’s Gift (18QU30) 1660-1730 Henry Coursey Coursey, family, servants, slaves Not reported16
Notley Hall (18ST74) 1663-1695 Thomas Notley Notley, servants, slaves 349 shovel tests17
Turner (18CH205) 1665-1685 William Cross Cross, family
Controlled surface collection; shovel tests; 1 3 x 3 m test unit18
Mattapany (18ST390) 1665-1740 Charles Calvert Calvert, family, servants, slaves Shovel tests; 106 5 x 5 ft test units19
Fendall (18CH805) 1670-1710 J. Fendall, W. Digges Fendall, household to 1681, then 3 5 x 5 ft test units20 Digges, family, servants, slaves
Zekiah House 1672-1690 Charles Calvert Calvert, family Not identified21
Moore’s Lodge (18CH777) 1672-1727 Thomas Hussey Hussey, family, servants, one 4 5 x 5 ft test units22 African slave
New Waterford (18ST677) 1676-1684 Stephen Murty Murty, 2 male servants
Shovel tests; 12 test units of varying dimensions23
King’s Reach (18CV83) 1690-1710 Richard Smith, Jr. Smith, Jr., family, servants, slaves 144 2 x 2 m test units; feature excavation24
Rebellion was followed by a growing animosity between the Calvert government and a group of Puritan émigrés from Virginia. This animosity es- calated in 1654 when the Puritans refused to take an oath of loyalty to Lord Baltimore. They fought a major naval battle about the matter in 1655 near present-day Annapolis, temporarily gaining con- trol of the colony. Even with this ongoing political instability, however, plantation settlement forged ahead, with plantations established in what would become Calvert, Charles, and Anne Arundel counties by the 1650s.26
Only three plantation sites dating to the very earliest years of the colony’s existence have been excavated or tested: these include Old Chapel Field (18ST233), St. John’s (18ST1-23), and the St. Clement’s Manor House (18ST794) (see fig- ure 1 and accompanying key). Old Chapel Field, located at the Jesuit plantation at St. Inigoes, was occupied from 1636 until ca. 1660 and served as the headquarters for the Jesuits’ Maryland mis- sion. St. John’s, established in 1638 by John Lewger, the Secretary of the colony, was located adjacent to St. Mary’s City. The St. Clement’s Manor House, first occupied ca. 1640, was the dwelling of
Thomas Gerard, the manor lord at St. Clement’s and a Catholic who both served in and tussled with the Calvert government. These sites repre- sent the principal households of three of the early investors in the colony. All were Catholic, and the archaeological assemblages from each site reflect the owners’ wealth, their efforts to interact with the indigenous population, and how they tried to reproduce recognizably English households in what was to them a New World wilderness.
Of the three sites, only St. John’s, near St. Mary’s City, has been completely excavated. Ar- chaeologist Garry Wheeler Stone identified the relatively large hall and parlor house John Lewger built at St. John’s as an effort to duplicate the style Lewger knew in England, “a product,” Stone not- ed, “of English expectations.” The investment in the building’s construction was considerable for its time and place. A box-framed structure mea- suring 52 by 20.5 feet, or just over 1000 square feet on the ground floor, the house was erected on a stone foundation with a stone-lined cellar at the parlor end (see figure 2). The two ground floor rooms were heated by an internal chimney of brick with a timber stack while two rooms
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