Unearthing St. Mary's City, livre ebook

This volume summarizes the remarkably diverse archaeological discoveries made during the past half century of investigations at the site of St. Mary’s City, the first capital of Maryland and one of the earliest European settlements in America. Founded in 1634, the city had disappeared by 1750, yet the archaeology documented in Unearthing St. Mary’s City reveals its untold history.

Contributors to this volume review new research approaches and methods developed recently at Historic St. Mary’s City. They study the archaeology, architecture, and people of the lively seventeenth-century colonial hub. They also explore the landscapes of agriculture, enslavement, and remembrance that developed at the site in the centuries after the capital’s relocation to Annapolis. In their chapters, contributors delve into subjects such as soil analysis, ceramics, diet, forts, burials, plantations, state houses, tenants, tobacco pipes, gaming, and the education of women.

The lands along the Chesapeake Bay have witnessed a vast range of human experiences, and this book highlights the lives of peoples of European, Native American, and African origins who lived on this site over a span of four centuries. Their stories illuminate the multilayered nature of this important place and the broader Chesapeake region and serve as a testament to the potential and power of historical archaeology.

Contributors: Terry Peterkin Brock | Karin S. Bruwelheide | Charles H. Fithian | Silas D. Hurry | Stephen S. Israel | Robert Keeler | George L. Miller | Henry M. Miller | Ruth M. Mitchell | Alexander “Sandy” H. Morrison II | Douglas W. Owsley | Travis G. Parno | Timothy B. Riordan | Michelle Sivilich | Garry Wheeler Stone | Wesley R. Willoughby | Donald L. Winter

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Foreword

William M. Kelso

1. Introduction to St. Mary’s City History and Archaeology

Henry M. Miller

Part 1. Discovering the Past: New Approaches and Methods

2. From Humus Mold to Stout Building: Reverse Engineering Post-in-the-Ground Structures

Garry Wheeler Stone and Alexander H. Morrison II

3. Soil Analysis at the St. John’s Site: An Earthy View of Early Maryland Revisited

Silas D. Hurry and Robert Winston Keeler

4. Finding Ephemeral Homes of the Enslaved: A St. Mary’s City Example

Ruth M. Mitchell and Henry M. Miller

5. Ceramic Studies at Maryland’s First Capital

Silas D. Hurry

Part 2. Studies of Seventeenth-Century St. Mary’s City

6. The Archaeology of Maryland Indians at St. Mary’s City and the Interactions of Cultures

Henry M. Miller and Silas D. Hurry

7. St. John’s Freehold: The Archaeology of One of Maryland’s Earliest Plantations

Ruth M. Mitchell, Henry M. Miller, and Garry Wheeler Stone

8. “Master Pope’s Fort”: Archaeological Investigations of a Fortification of the English Civil Wars in St. Mary’s City

Charles H. Fithian

9. Community, Identity, and Public Spaces: The Calvert House as the First State House of Maryland

Wesley R. Willoughby

10. “The most bewitching Game”: Games and Entertainment in Seventeenth-Century St. Mary’s City

Travis G. Parno and Timothy B. Riordan

11. The Lead Coffins of St. Mary’s: Burials of the Elite in the Early Chesapeake

Karin S. Bruwelheide, Henry M. Miller, Douglas W. Owsley, and Timothy B. Riordan

Part 3. After the Capital: The Archaeology of St. Mary’s City in the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Centuries

12. The Captain John Hicks House Site and the Eighteenth-Century Townlands Community

Garry Wheeler Stone and Stephen S. Israel

13. A Second Look at the Nineteenth-Century Ceramics from Tabbs Purchase and the Tenants Who Used Them

George L. Miller

14. The Archaeology of African American Mobility in Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century St. Mary’s City

Terry Peterkin Brock

15. “Establish on that sacred spot a female seminary”: Archaeology of St. Mary’s Female Seminary

Michelle Sivilich, Travis G. Parno, Ruth M. Mitchell, and Donald L. Winter

16. Preserving the Cultural Memory of a Place

Travis G. Parno and Henry M. Miller

References

List of Contributors

Index