Page 69 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

was “built cheaply” and of earthfast construction. An early period refuse midden located southwest of the main dwelling at St. John’s consisted almost entirely of milk pan and other utilitarian vessel fragments, revealing a segregated locus of dairy- ing activity thought to be associated with female servants. By 1654, Gerard also had a “Quarter- ing howse” in the yard adjacent to St. Clement’s Manor.29
While building plans are useful for exam- ining how colonists shaped domestic spaces, artifacts can reveal how spaces within buildings were furnished and used. The assemblages from Old Chapel Field and St. Clement’s Manor in- dicate that the effort to recreate English dwell- ings extended to building interiors. Upholstered chairs, beds and bedsteads with curtains for pri- vacy, tin-glazed plates and bowls, case and wine bottles, table glass, Rhenish drinking pots, lead- glazed milk pans, iron knives, and white clay to- bacco pipes adorned the interiors of these early dwellings. Fragments from a rare and no doubt expensive Kraak (Chinese) porcelain vessel were recovered from Old Chapel Field, the only one of its kind known for early Maryland (see figure 4). At St. Clement’s Manor, an ornate figural salt (in the shape of a human figure) with a candlestick holder (see figure 5) graced Thomas Gerard’s man- or house table. The types and varieties of artifacts
figure 2
Plan of St. John’s (18ST1-23), St. Mary’s City, Maryland, ca. 1655 (after Stone 1982).
figure 3
Plans of Piny Neck, Snow Hill, St. Peter’s, and Cross Manor (after Stone 1982).
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IMAGE BY SCOTT STRICKLAND
IMAGE BY SCOTT STRICKLAND