Page 68 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

TABLE 1 — Architectural materials recovered from selected sites (arranged chronologically).
Note – some sites are fully excavated, others are represented by limited testing (see key to figure 1).
Old Chapel Field
St. Clement’s Manor
Stevens Plantation
Richard Smith, Sr.
Patuxent Point
Fair Fountain
Mattapany
Moore’s Lodge
New Waterford
1636- 1660
1658- 1690
1663- 1695
1663- 1695
1665- 1685
1670- 1710
1675- 1727
1690- 1711
66
or chambers on the second floor were unheated. The house had a lobby entrance, wood floors, and walls made of board rather than plaster. St. John’s also had glazed (or glass) windows and an early detached kitchen.27
While neither the Old Chapel Field dwell- ing nor the St. Clement’s Manor House have been exposed, the thousands of fragments of brick, dozens of wrought nails, and several fragments of window glass recovered from both sites suggest that Lewger was not alone in his effort to build a traditional English farmhouse (see table 1). The Jesuits at Old Chapel Field and Thomas Gerard at St. Clement’s Manor had each purchased the services of a brick-maker, and the large quantities of brick fragments recovered from these two sites suggest that brick was indeed an important com- ponent in the construction of each house. At Old Chapel Field, a feature tentatively identified as a lime kiln was exposed, presumably for producing lime from oyster shells for the production of mor- tar. At St. Clement’s, Gerard’s house was set on a slight topographic rise, giving it an elevated posi- tion for visitors approaching from the water. Like St. John’s, neither the house at Old Chapel Field nor the house at St. Clement’s Manor appears to have been plastered but both had glazed windows.
While the forms of the principal dwellings at Old Chapel Field and St. Clement’s Manor
are as-yet unknown, Garry Stone has reviewed the documentary evidence describing four other early Maryland plantation dwellings, includ- ing Piny Neck, Snow Hill, St. Peter’s, and Cross Manor. None of these sites has yet been archae- ologically identified. Piny Neck, Snow Hill, and St. Peter’s all appear to have been variations on the hall/kitchen-parlor arrangement seen at St. John’s. These houses probably had internal chimneys and lobby entrances and it is possible and perhaps probable that the dwellings at Old Chapel Field and St. Clement’s Manor took the same form. Only further archaeological testing can answer that question. Cross Manor, however, was something entirely different, a building of brick with an apparently unheated hall and two cross- wings. This is a plan Stone argues was an especial- ly early attempt in the colony to segregate service areas and servants’ lodgings from the manor lord and his family. Cross Manor, with its H-shaped form was an “ancient plan” updated by Cornwallis according to Renaissance ideals segregating social classes.28
The hall/parlor plans seemingly preferred by at least some colonists in this early period should not be read as a rejection of the English trend to- ward increasingly segregated space. At St. John’s, a detached quarter was in place by 1640 at the main dwelling’s north corner (see figure 2). The quarter
Notley Hall
Turner
Fendall
King’s Reach
Years Occupied
1640- 1672
1651- 1685
1658-1695
1665- 1740
1676- 1695
Brick fragments per sq ft
68.80
17.40
0.27
N/A
1.27
0.25
53.62
0
119.90
87.84
18.43
1.27
0.46
Window glass/ lead came
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Yellow brick
Plaster
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Wood floor
X
X
X
Floor tile
X
X
X
X
Fireplace tile
X
X
X
X
Cellar, full
X
X
Roof tile
X
Total Years
24
32
34
32
37
32
32
20
75
40
52
19
21