Archaeology in Annapolis

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/10990

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Easton, Maryland

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    Phase I and II Archaeological Testing at the Talbot County Women’s Club, 18 Talbot Lane, Easton, Maryland, 18TA439
    (2015) Jenkins, Tracy H.; Leone, Mark P.
    The University of Maryland, College Park, Archaeology in Annapolis Project, conducted Phase I and II archaeological excavations of the Talbot County Women’s Club (TCWC) in Easton, Maryland, from July 8th through July 26th, 2013. This site is located at 18 Talbot Lane. The Women’s Club granted permission for this excavation as a part of The Hill Community Project to document and publicize the history of the Easton neighborhood known as The Hill and of the community of free African Americans that coalesced around this neighborhood in the nineteenth century. Following on the heels of the 2012 successful public excavation of the Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier (HFBS), this second public excavation within The Hill Community Project sought more information on early members of the free black community and on the material conditions of tenants living on The Hill in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. It also continued archaeologists’ efforts at the HFBS to test the capability of archaeological sites of bringing together people of different backgrounds to forge a more open, civil discourse about the past. To these ends, archaeologists conducted a shovel test pit (STP) survey of yard spaces at the Women’s Club and opened seven test units to further investigate activity areas and construction phases, while maintaining a public dig site. While the HFBS excavation focused on African-American landowners from 1879 to 2002, the Women’s Club excavation focuses on the non-landowners who lived here from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries in order to highlight the diversity of experiences among neighborhood residents through the years. These residents included enslaved and free African Americans in the nineteenth century and tenants of unknown ethnic background in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, upwards of two thirds of the residents of The Hill rent their homes. The high rate of tenancy has been identified as a major contributor toward the gentrification processes that currently threaten the integrity of the African American community by pushing black families from dilapidating homes and demolishing historic community and racial landmarks in attempts to remove blight from the neighborhood. Excavations at the Women’s Club therefore sought more information on the material conditions of tenancy and the ways in which community can exist even without home-ownership. The most promising archaeological materials for addressing these questions at the Women’s Club are a nineteenth-century kitchen used by both enslaved and free cooks and a sheet midden created by the several families renting the property from 1891-1946.
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    Phase II Archaeological Testing on Wye Greenhouse (18TA314), Talbot County, Maryland, 2008
    (2009) Blair, John E.; Cochran, Matthew David; Duensing, Stephanie N.; Leone, Mark P.
    From October 27, 2008 to November 24, 2008 staff from the Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), Archaeology in Annapolis Project, conducted archaeological testing on the Wye House Greenhouse (18TA314), Talbot County, Maryland. This Phase II investigation has been conducted at the request of the Greenhouse’s current owner, Mrs. Mary Tilghman, prior to planned Greenhouse foundation stabilization efforts. The project area for this Phase II archaeological investigation comprises the immediate exterior perimeter of the Wye Greenhouse foundation. Seven test units were excavated in the course of this project to evaluate archaeological integrity and to evaluate the potential effects of planned stabilization efforts on archaeological resources. In addition to questions of archaeological integrity, research questions guiding this project focused on the architectural development of the Wye Greenhouse as well as its social use, both by members of the Lloyd family and the plantation’s enslaved African-American inhabitants. Background historical research and oral histories differ concerning the Greenhouse’s initial date of construction. Historical research suggests a construction date of the c. 1770s, while oral histories suggest an initial date of construction of c. 1740s. Archaeological testing has shown that the Greenhouse underwent two major developmental phases—with the main block of the Greenhouse having been constructed in the 1770s and the East and West Wings and hypocaust system added in the mid 1780s. In addition to providing evidence of the Greenhouse’s structural change, levels and features excavated in the course of this project have shed light on the social use of the Wye Greenhouse throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Artifact deposits analyzed in this report detail the Lloyd family’s use of the Greenhouse as both a social space and as a symbol of 18th century opulence. Artifact analyses also shed light on the use of the Greenhouse’s north shed as a slave quarter from the 1790s through the 1840s. Testing in the course of this project has concluded that there is a high degree of archaeological integrity within the project’s area of potential effect. In addition, testing has determined that intact archaeological resources have the distinct potential to add a considerable depth of historical knowledge concerning the Greenhouse’s structural change and social use throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Archaeological evidence detailed in this report should be read as supporting evidence for the Greenhouse’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
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    Phase I and II Archaeological Testing at 321 and 323 South Street, Easton Maryland, Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier, 2012
    (2013) Jenkins, Tracy H.; Skolnik, Benjamin A.; Leone, Mark P.
    The University of Maryland, College Park, Archaeology in Annapolis Project, conducted Phase I and II archaeological excavations of the property in Easton, Maryland, known as the Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier (HFBS) from July 9th through July 20th 2012. The Housing Authority of the Town of Easton owns this property, located at 323 South St., and excavations were conducted at the request of Historic Easton, Inc., with the Housing Authority’s permission, and forms a part of The Hill Project to document and publicize the history of the Easton neighborhood known as The Hill, which has been home to a community of free African Americans since the late eighteenth century. This first excavation within The Hill Project successfully tested the potential for research archaeology to serve the interests of The Hill’s resident and descendant communities, and excavation at the HFBS contributed to The Hill Project’s ongoing historic preservation and community revitalization efforts. Four shovel test pits (STPs) and three 5’x5’ test units were excavated in yard spaces. The Hill’s free black community dates to the late eighteenth century. However, documentary and oral history indicated that the standing built environment at the HFBS dated only to the period of the first African American owners of the site, from ca. 1879. Shedding light on the development of the community through time, archaeological remains documented at the site suggest that this period was the first inhabitation of the property, despite the inhabitation of other properties nearby for the one hundred years prior. They indicate that much yard space has been used in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries for activities including gardening, play, and trash disposal. Two US Army buttons from ca. 1900 support the site’s association with Buffalo Soldier William Gardner and his family, who curated his discharge papers in the house. The site remained open to the general public during excavation and was actively interpreted to site visitors. During and since the excavation, the HFBS has received many visitors, including many Hill residents, and has attracted much news interest. As of the summer of 2013, it has been included in regular walking tours of The Hill’s historical heritage. The excavations determined that the archaeological record at the HFBS, and likely across The Hill, is quite intact and can support active research. Both the HFBS and The Hill are therefore eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places under criterion D. Because of the integrity and uniqueness of the archaeological record at the HFBS, we recommend that the site be protected for further archaeological research. However, since the communities’ interest in researching the origins and early development of the free African American community that existed on The Hill during the time of slavery can be more effectively addressed elsewhere in the neighborhood, we recommend that excavation at the HFBS be a secondary priority for archaeologists for the present.