Page 95 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

CHAPTER THREE
The Archaeological Search for Providence: Anne Arundel County’s First European Settlement
By Al Luckenbach
In the fall of 1989 I visited the site of a proposed residential subdivision as part of my job as archaeologist for Anne Arundel County. Only a few years before, the county had hired their first architectur-
al historian Donna Ware to review development effects on historic buildings, and in 1988 I had joined her in the county’s Office of Planning and Zoning. As I walked across the abandoned farm field — soon to bear a bumper crop of new houses — I began finding nails, pieces of glass, pottery, and fragments of brown tobacco pipes. These “ter- ra-cotta” pipes were particularly diagnostic clues to the fact that this had been the site of a struc- ture that existed in the third quarter of the 17th century. Since the area I was searching was near the assumed location of the county’s first Europe- an settlement “Providence” (settled in 1649), my interest was immediately heightened.
As a previously platted subdivision, the devel- opment did not require archaeological mitigation by the developer. It was clear, however, that the important new site had to be tested and the in- formation it contained recorded before it was de- stroyed. Lacking a field crew the endeavor would be difficult. Ultimately with the help of the Mary- land Historical Trust, Historic St. Mary’s City, R. Christopher Goodwin and Associates, and a crew of local volunteers, what would become known as the Broadneck Site was salvaged by excavations over a period of several months, and the informa- tion it contained documented for history.
This salvage excavation would be the start of what was ultimately a two decadelong inves- tigation of 17th century sites in Anne Arundel County. Since these grew to be centered not only on Providence but also on the early settlement of
Herrington on Herring Bay, and the 1683 town of London on the South River, the combined effort soon became known as the “Lost Towns Project.” Fortunately, the dramatic nature of these discov- eries led to abundant press coverage and local support — particularly political support — so the Lost Towns Project quickly grew to number a doz- en professional archaeologists aided by an ardent group of volunteers. What began as a single com- pliance archaeologist at an office desk had become a major field research project that spanned nearly three decades.
The Settlement of Providence
The year 1649 must have been an especially dif- ficult one for Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, and Proprietor of Maryland. The colony had first been settled in 1634, in part, as a refuge for Catholics who faced persecution at home in England. But the English king Charles I, who had given Balti- more that colony, had just been captured and beheaded by the soon to be victorious Protestant Parliamentarians in the English Civil War. The English Civil Wars had raged since 1642, pitting King Charles against the supporters of Parliament — called “roundheads.” The demise of Charles in 1649 would usher the monarchy out of England until the return of Charles II in 1660.
The loss of King Charles I would lead Lord Baltimore to immediately take three steps in an bold attempt to hold on to his colony. He replaced his Governor with a Protestant one, he passed a law saying all religions would be “tolerated” in the col- ony (worried, of course, that Catholics would not), and he invited a group of non-conformist Puritans from Southside Virginia to settle in Maryland to
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