Port Tobacco Archaeological Project

Pulled In

2009-12-01T14:26:00.006-05:00

While excavating the Midden, we found a nice cluster of artifacts. One of them was this drawer pull made of a copper alloy, possibly brass . It has molded, floral decorations. This type of pull is called a bail handle, as opposed to a pendant or loop handle. The shape of the pull, thick with a bulging central area was most popular from about 1750 to 1800. The style of the face plate, which we did not find, can further narrow the date window.

Also in the midden, nestled close to the drawer pull, was a rim piece from a Mid-Atlantic Slipware vessel. This ceramic dates to the mid-19th century.

Can you identify the artifact?

2009-11-30T12:50:00.000-05:00

Every Monday (if possible, given our varying lab/field schedule), we will post a brief description and picture of an artifact for you, our loyal reader, to identify! The following week we will post the answer, along with another object. If you get stumped do not fret, but e-mail one of us or comment and we will see if we can provide some additional hints. However, since this is the first week we will start you all off easy.

This stoneware is immediately identifiable by its gray to white coloring and its "orange peel" pitted surface. While some vessels of this type were slipped, others were decorated with molded patterns such as barley, basketweave, or diaper and dot.

See? This should be very easy...at least for this week! Tune in next Monday for the answer!

Kelley

Accomplishments

2009-11-29T12:12:00.003-05:00

Greetings all...I hope our readers have had a delightful holiday weekend. I apologize for the lack of a posting yesterday...the crew scattered for the weekend and Scott and I were conducting an archaeological survey for an unrelated project.

This being something of an anniversary edition blog...our 800th...and this November being the third year of my involvement in Port Tobacco, I thought I would summarize the PTAP team's accomplishments:

Close-interval shovel testing and detailed mapping of the entire core of the village, resulting in accurate and precise inventory of archaeological sites in town.
Thorough surface collection of the three cultivated fields between Port Tobacco and Warehouse Point, resulting in the accurate and precise mapping of a dozen 18th-century domestic sites and early prehistoric aboriginal sites.
Test excavations at several loci in town, resulting in the identification of portions of the Wade House, the 1860 jail, the Swann House, and several 18th-century house sites that we have not yet associated with specific households.
Exploration of a Contact period site represented by European trade items and aboriginal pottery and projectile points.
Investigation and mapping of a Union encampment just outside of the town.
Development of large databases that include land title, census, and newspaper data.
Processing and cataloguing of 128,249 artifacts representing cultural periods from early prehistory through the early 20th century.
Production of detailed technical reports upon the conclusion of each major field effort, most of which can be downloaded from the website of the Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco (www.restoreporttobacco.org). A report on this spring's Archeological Society of Maryland field session is nearly complete and also will be made available from the Society's website.
A group of people who are immensely proud of their efforts and the results of those efforts.

Of course, there is a great deal of work left undone. In terms of excavation and analysis, we have only scratched the surface. As long as property owners continue to grant us access to their land, and as long as volunteers continue to aid the effort, we will continue to explore what may be the best preserved Colonial town site in Maryland.

Jim

The softer side of Jim

2009-11-27T13:28:00.002-05:00

The chap you know as Dr. James G. Gibb is a complex man with a complex past. A New Yorker by birth, Jim received his academic training in the State University of New York system, beginning at Stony Brook and finishing at Binghamton. His migration to Maryland occurred after some time spent working in the desert Southwest. This period of Jim's life is shrouded in mystery, probably for good reason.

Yes, Jim Gibb is an accomplished archaeologist but he is more than that. Jim's passion is sharing the past with others. He has always been active in historical and archaeological societies and gives so many public presentations that some believe he has sent robotic clones to one side of Maryland while he himself is on the other side. Jim doesn't stop there, after all there are 24 hours in a day! Jim is known for his work with volunteers and students, offering internship and mentorship opportunities whenever he can. Everyone at PTAP, staff and volunteers alike, have learned a lot from this archaeological sensei.

These are things most of us probably already knew. However there is another side of Jim that we don't all get to see....a softer side you might say.

Jim is an accomplished guitar player...Jim is a lover of animals, especially his three current dogs...Jim is also as elusive as Bigfoot and the El Chupacabra when it comes to photographing him in his natural environment! But if you look really close at the photograph below you can just barely make out the elusive archaeologist trying to blend into the foliage.

"A wise man once said that a true scholar never grows older, he just grows wiser. Of course that wise man is now dead."

- Peter

Happy Turkey Day!

2009-11-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

Today we thought it would be inappropriate to discuss any topic unrelated to Thanksgiving, which means nothing but pies, turkeys, parades, and football. As such, I present you with a brief lesson on...the turkey.

Wild turkeys are native to the forests of North America, where fossils from ancient turkey ancestors dating to the early Miocene (about 23 million years ago) have been found. The majestic modern turkey is characterized by a massive wattle and a snood--that goofy piece of skin that hangs down from the top of the beak. An interesting fact about this fine bird is that Benjamin Franklin supposedly wanted to make the Wild Turkey, not the Bald Eagle, the national bird of the United States. Of course, the turkey you will be eating today is likely a domestic turkey, but that does not mean you should not show it some of the admiration one of our forefathers did for its wild cousin! That is unless you are Jim, in which case I hope your tofurkey is delicious.

Port Tobacco, if I recall correctly, is actually home to a couple of Wild Turkeys. Perhaps you recall their loud gobbles waking you up in the morning during the Field Session?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Kelley

Three Faces of Lady Liberty: The Matron

2009-11-25T13:50:00.006-05:00

Our foundation unit artifacts continue to produce. This is a Coronet Matron Head Cent, which was circulated between 1816 and 1839. Engraved by Robert Scot, it has the head of Liberty wearing a crown surrounded by six-pointed stars. The coin we have has the usual 13 stars, but a mistake in 1817 gave some of these coins 15. This Liberty is rather more robust than others and scholars in the 1950's commented that she “resembled the head of an obese ward boss instead of a lady”, and that it is “probably the ugliest head of Ms. Liberty ever to appear on a U.S. coin.” Most Matron coins also have the regular dentilled rim, but some 1834 coins have a beaded rim. Our coin, however, is so worn that both the date and any definition on the rim is gone. (top image)

The Matron Cent can be Brown, Red-Brown, or Red. The latter being the most rare and most expensive.

Have a great Thanksgiving Weekend!

Anne

Oops! Slipware!

2009-11-24T14:17:00.004-05:00

We are finishing up the report writing for the 2009 Field Session. I took several photographs of the artifacts from the Compton field to include. Represented in the photos was one of my favorite ceramics: Staffordshire Slipware. 82 pieces were excavated from the Compton field this year, 75 of those from the Aboriginal Locus alone.

A refined form of Staffordshire Slipware,called Toft-ware, was made in mid-1700's , but it is rare to find this archaeologically. In the last quarter of the 17^th century, Staffordshire Slipware became a utilitarian ceramic for less affluent households and taverns.

Staffordshire Slipware is an earthenware with a buff to pink paste. The vessel is coated with white slip and brown slip. The slips are then mixed or combed to create the designs. Sometimes the second slip is applied in thin lines and dots. Finally, the vessel is coated with clear lead glaze that makes the white slip look yellow. Over time, the decorations became cruder and the lines thicker.

Anne

The moment you have all been waiting for...

2009-11-23T13:18:00.005-05:00

As promised (multiple times...) I present to you the completed Swann House foundation drawing! After many hours of scanning, hatching, moving, rotating, and joining these walls we have a completed drawing of the foundation, which certainly will be an excellent reference now that we are far from the field (and judging by the weather, now that the foundation is soggy and possibly flooded). So, please enjoy, and click on the image for an up-close view.
We will be in the office for the rest of the week, so expect more posts about the interesting assortment of artifacts that came out of the soil in the areas around and inside the Swann House foundation.

Kelley

Furca Ostrea...

2009-11-20T13:44:00.008-05:00

....Latin for oyster fork.Can you believe there was a time when people didn't use forks?! They used a knife for solids and a spoon liquids!! Or even worse...their hands!! How very uncivilized!! (note the sarcasm in my voice)

The fork seen here is a small three pronged fork, most likely an oyster fork found in Unit 80 during our search for the Swann House. Now, it could also be a fish fork, fruit fork, or strawberry fork. We're guessing oyster fork. Oyster forks are made to follow the shape of the shell so it is easier to lift the meat from the shell. Surely if James Swann ran an oyster house, he would have had this handy utensil, wouldn't he?

One of the earliest dinner forks is attributed to Constantinople in 400 A.D.; it can be seen in the Dumbarton Oaks collection in Washington, D.C. Northern Europeans long considered forks to be unmanly or devilish. Early forks ranged from 2 to 4 prongs with the 4 prong fork being the most common "dinner fork" that we use today.

Today, depending on need, a set of flatware may contain five forks: dinner fork, fish fork, luncheon fork, salad or dessert fork, and seafood fork.

My head is spinning from the idea of having to go through "dinner etiquette" in order to figure out which one to use...I am all for going back to eating with our hands...just seems easier!

Pete and Anne

Health and Beauty

2009-11-19T14:18:00.007-05:00

We began photographing the artifacts that Pete mentioned in yesterdays blog. The Ban Deodorant container has an aluminum lid, but the base is white milk glass. Embossing on the bottom reads, "Bristol-Myers Co. Contains Aluminum Chlorhydroxide. Net Wgt.1.05OZ. New York, N.Y."
We have not yet tried to open the container, but it is heavy for its size. Who knows how much product might be left.

Several small machine-made bottles with screw-top threading also came from the unit inside the foundation. The brown glass bottle is embossed on the bottom with "L-60 23" and is warped, possibly a mistake made during manufacture. The small glass bottle has a square base with an embossed "2" on it.

The larger colorless bottle is Duraglass, made by Owens Illinois Glass Company based in Toledo, Ohio. The bottom of the bottle has an
"I" with an oval. This mark was introduced in 1954 and by 1958 most Owens Illinois bottles used this mark. The side has graduated volume marks in half ccs. This was probably a medicine bottle.

Trash or Treasure?

2009-11-18T15:13:00.003-05:00

Anne and I started to wash the artifacts from the Swann Site today. We already have told you about one of the great finds last week. Before we get to the smaller finds, we took a couple buckets full of odds and ends type artifacts to try and clean them off to see what we had come up with.

The results were less than mystifying but still interesting.

Before Ban came out with the all new "roll on" deodorant in 1992, they at one point came in a aluminum can much like those that hold chewing tobacco today. We found several of these cans in our trash filled unit.

Other things of note...

old paint cans
a hairbrush
bleach bottles
glass medicine bottles
Kraft mayonnaise lid
beer bottles
a lock

...all interesting things which we will research, photograph and catalog once they dry. Pictures to come tomorrow!

- Peter

...Stand By...

2009-11-17T14:13:00.003-05:00

Today we did yet more report writing and Auto-CAD mapping. Stayed tuned for much more exciting events tomorrow!

And two of our crew members age another year...

2009-11-16T14:37:00.008-05:00

Happy birthday to our crew members Jim and Anne! As of today, Anne has graced the earth with her presence for 24 years, and, as of Friday, Jim has...well, I wouldn't use the word "graced," but perhaps "annoyed" his staff and the rest of the world for another year. Of course, I'm kidding...mostly.

Here are photos of these two folks working down at Port Tobacco...or at least doing a fine job pretending to work.

So, from the rest of the crew, happy birthday! Here's to many more years of successful digging!

Kelley

More on Eroded Site

2009-11-14T17:45:00.005-05:00

Thursday I wrote about a highly eroded site that the GAC team tested in a Southern Maryland county. I thought that I would add a bit more on the subject. I continue to be cagey about the site and where it is located because we are in the middle of a process. In any case, the specific location is irrelevant to the point.

In the map to the above you can see the site 18PR996 on top of a knoll and several artifacts that were recovered from the plowed surface some months ago. I noted in the earlier blog that we surface collected, shovel tested, metal detected, and excavated five 3 ft by 3 ft units. We exposed and excavated the very bottom portion of a pit with some ash in its fill. Clearly, at least one foot, and possibly several feet, of soil has been lost over the past couple of centuries, and especially during the 20th century.

In the photograph to the right, you can see the artifacts that we collected during all phases of field work. This isn't a sample...apart from some small brick fragments and some oyster shell fragments, this is everything we recovered. In fact, the probable fuel line (#5) and the bolt (#3) are machine parts, likely from a 20th-century tractor.

Clearly there was a house on the site, but surely it was built with more than a few nails (#s 1, 2, 4, and 7) and furnished with more than a few bits of ceramic (#s 6, 7, and 8).

Identifying the locations of these early 19th-century house sites has research value, but we are unlikely to get much more information out of them...they are lost.

Jim

Foundation Mapping Continues...sort of

2009-11-13T20:16:00.006-05:00

Hey folks,

Sorry for the late blog post on this rainy, windy day. After trekking back from Port Tobacco I was set to finish up the mapping of the Swann House foundation, but was foiled by technology in the form of an uncooperative AutoCAD program. I was, however, able to complete the south wall--please click on the image below for a better look. I promise a complete, high-quality, drawing of the foundation by the middle of next week.

Also to look forward to over the next couple weeks are updates about the excavations done at Port Tobacco that were funded through a Preserve American grant. One of the areas included in this is the site where April and her minions...I mean, enthusiastic students, searched for the Indian King hotel. Perhaps some of our volunteers would remember this area better as the one full of tin-glazed ceramics.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend (stay dry!)

Kelley

The Earth is Falling

2009-11-12T16:30:00.006-05:00

The GAC crew conducted a one-day site examination on an early 19th-century domestic site in a neighboring county earlier this week. It proved instructive in that it represents the exact opposite effect of erosion that we see in Port Tobacco.

In Port Tobacco, large expanses of the town are covered in sediments that had eroded from the surrounding uplands. But what do you suppose archaeological sites in the uplands look like?

The site we looked at this week had been plowed earlier in the year. We found nothing on the surface of the high ground, although we did note two pieces of pearlware on the low ground several hundred feet to the west and northeast. Fifteen shovel tests at 25 ft intervals on three parallel transects produced only sparse traces of brick. Metal detecting produced only two handwrought nails and one machine-cut, machine-headed nail. Five 3 ft by 3 ft test units yielded five sherds of pearlware, some small oyster shell and brick fragments, and another handwrought nail. Clearly there is an early 19th-century domestic site on this small ridge.

Two of our test units exposed part of an ash-filled pit (see above). Note the ring around the perimeter that I scored with my trowel, showing the bottom sediment encompassing a later deposit. We estimate that we recovered half of the pit and that it was at least 4 ft in diameter. A small test hole near the presumed center revealed that it was only three inches deep. We excavated the exposed portion of the pit and it proved to be uniformly shallow.

My reading of this pit feature is that it has been heavily truncated by plowing and erosion. An estimate of one to three feet lost to erosion seems reasonable...the sparse artifacts in the overlying plowzone support this estimate. The site has eroded away and only the very bottom portion of a deep pit has survived. If you were to have stood upon this site a century ago, my guess is that you would have been one to three feet higher in elevation. Where did all that soil go? Take a look at the nearby creek and the answer becomes obvious.

Based on work elsewhere, I think this erosional problem has plagued Southern Maryland for years, but it greatly accelerated with the widespread adoption of motorized plowing beginning in the 1930s.

Jim

Today's blog is brought to you by...

2009-11-11T14:20:00.014-05:00

...the north wall of the Swann House! The rainy fall weather has kept us inside the office, meaning that we are all diligently working on site reports and mapping. One of my tasks today was continuing to digitize our maps of the Swann House foundation. Pete did a quick drawing a week or so ago, but since then we have been back out in the field with our pencils and folding rules to carefully map in each stone and brick. While tracing these hand-drawn maps in AutoCAD does not sound especially difficult, it becomes more time-consuming than one would expect! To start, we scan in the drawing(s) we intend to digitize. The drawing below is the section of the north wall farthest to the west.

This scanned document is then referenced into AutoCAD, scaled, and traced. After the large stones are copied we go back through and add the patches of mortar (the darker hatched areas). The drawing below is the completed north wall that Anne has been working on over the past week. Please click on both of these images to get a better idea of what these maps look like (Note: you will be unable to so this in Microsoft Internet Explorer but should work fine in Mozilla). To the left you can see the digitized version of the drawing above, which has now had the other sections of the north wall added onto it. Once each of the four walls is completed, we will merge them together and have a detailed drawing of the foundation. This final masterpiece will be used primarily for publication purposes, though it also gives us a clear reference for the site now that we have left the field for the season.

Kelley

Apologies

2009-11-10T22:17:00.001-05:00

Everybody is off in different directions today, so no substantive posting. Apart from other projects on which the GAC team is working, we have undertaken a long-overdue equipment overhaul, organization, and cleaning. We have a good deal of material to clean and process from the recent Port Tobacco work, so stay tuned for updates.

We are nearly finished with a small-scale site examination in neighboring Prince George's County that should be very illuminating in terms of the erosion problem at Port Tobacco. Hopefully, we can blog on that later in the week. Because the project is in progress, I'll be unusually vague about many specifics, but the results of our work illustrate just how severe erosion of farmlands was during the 20th century.

Jim

Talk on Excavation of 18th Century Maryland Site

2009-11-09T15:21:00.004-05:00

Just a reminder that Tuesday (Nov 10) the Charles County Archaeological Society (CCAS) will be meeting at 7:30pm at the Port Tobacco Courthouse. Ed Chaney, Deputy Director of Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, will present a talk, entitled "Ye dwelling house wherin the plaintiff's grandfather lived: Excavations on an early 18th-century plantation."

Carol

PS from Jim:
After a ceramics workshop at J. Patterson Park & Museum last May, we walked over to the site that Ed will be talking about, guided by Trish Samford. This is a very rich, complex, and interesting site. Don't miss this talk

Other Fields

2009-11-07T19:47:00.003-05:00

My wife Bonnie and I spent the day in Richmond, Virginia, visiting an old friend and colleague. Tara took us around her adopted home town. I was impressed by the extraordinary strides the city has made in the last 30 years, since last I spent any time there. It is clean, attractive, and historic.

Richmond has done a great deal in using its historic resources...canals, factory buildings, dwellings...to great effect. Historic resources development has turned into an economic engine, promoting the city as a heritage destination and community with the kinds of amenities that attract major corporations.

The model is readily seen in Richmond, and in other communities around the nation and the world. Charles County would do well to pay attention and consider diversifying its economic base in a similar manner. Port Tobacco, someday, may lie at the core of such an effort.

Jim

Putting Site to Bed

2009-11-06T17:28:00.003-05:00

The GAC crew will be working on some other projects in Southern Maryland for the next month or two, curtailing our fieldwork at Port Tobacco. One of our tasks today was to put the site to bed, backfilling Unit 83, backfilling a portion of the exposed chimney at the Swann site, and putting away equipment.

We still managed to work for a few hours on Unit 83. There is no doubt that the foundation was razed and filled with a mixture of masonry rubble and 1960s domestic refuse, including a jar of Ban deodorant...the cream kind that users applied with their hand. We didn't open the jar...it is possible that we have some well-cured antiperspirant...a 1960s vintage. Below the masonry rubble, the domestic refuse seems to be diminishing and we hit a fair amount of ash and burned oyster shell.

I am confident that we have some historically interesting deposits in the bottom of the cellar, but we'll have to remove at least 2 ft of demolition debris and modern domestic trash before we can explore those early deposits. Based on the likely results of our analyses, we should be able to justify the use of a backhoe to clean out the recent material, thereby allowing more prudent investment of limited resources.

The crew will continue to report on results of our work at Swann House and at the other sites explored this past spring. The technical report on the ASM field session work should be ready by early December. As in the past, we will post the report on the Web.

Jim

2009-11-05T13:03:00.004-05:00

Today Kelley and I stayed in the lab and worked on mapping and report writing. Tomorrow we will be back at Port Tobacco. This will likely be the last time we are there for a while. We will finish the 5x5 started in the Northeast corner on Tuesday (above) and check over the foundation in general to tie up any loose ends.

Below is a close up of the burned oyster shell mentioned in the blog on Monday. Click on the image for a closer view.

Anne

Dinner is served!

2009-11-04T13:21:00.004-05:00

As Jim mentioned yesterday our excavation into the cellar fill of the Swann House has produced numerous 20th century artifacts. This does not mean that all of these more recent artifacts are particularly dull, and one in particular roused our interest (perhaps because it was easy to identify!). This clunker of a can opener came out of Stratum 2 of Unit 83 in the northeast corner of the cellar hole. In light of this interesting find, I thought it would be suitable to discuss a brief history of the can opener.

The tin can was first patented in 1810 by Peter Durand. This was a major advancement in the world of food preservation. However, due to a lack of foresight, Mr. Durand did not think to invent a device that would open these thick-walled cans. As such, people resorted to using knives, chisels, hammers, and whatever else they could to release a can's contents. Finally, in 1858, Ezra Waterbury of Connecticut put forth a design for the first can opener. His invention was similar to the can opener found on a pocket knife except it was much larger. This cumbersome device was not a household item, but would have been found at the local grocery store where a clerk would open all of your cans after you purchased them. The can opener we are most familiar with, the type with a rolling wheel, was only introduced in 1870, followed by one with a serrated wheel in 1925. A little over 5 years later the electric can opener made its first debut.

So how old is our can opener? Well, first off keep in mind that this is not the typical hand-held device, but would sit on a counter top and be used to punch holes in either side of a can to pour out its contents (as opposed to removing the lid). It certainly is not very old, and likely dates to somewhere in the mid-20th century...it even still has rubber feet on the bottom!

Now next time you go to prepare some soup for dinner you can thank the likes of Pete Durand and Ezra Waterbury! For tomorrow's blog we will be sure post some pictures of the burned oyster shell that Jim mentioned a couple days ago.

Kelley

Digging into Swann Cellar

2009-11-03T18:20:00.003-05:00

Sorry...no pictures today.

Pete, Anne, and Kelley started excavating a 5 ft by 5 ft unit into the northeast corner of the Swann House cellar hole. The upper horizon, as expected, produced a large number of 20th-century artifacts, confirming our suspicion that the entire site is covered with recent sediments.

The team excavated into what appears to be underlying demolition rubble. We collected, among other things, a half-gallon plastic bleach bottle. Again, such finds confirm our suspicion that the building was razed in the 1960s and the pile of stone and 1950s automobile parts result from grading of the site.

Not to worry, though; we have encountered much earlier, undisturbed deposits around the building and fully expect to find intact deposits in the cellar, beneath the rubble.

We expect to return to Port Tobacco on Friday. That may be the last field day for awhile as the GAC crew focuses on projects in neighboring counties.

Jim

No skeletons, but burned oyster shells

2009-11-02T17:11:00.004-05:00

We finished mapping the Swann House foundation today and will excavate one unit in the northeast corner tomorrow.

The north side of the chimney (pictured left) turned out to be a little odd. Not Anne...she's normal enough, but the foundation and the fill within. The west wall consists of two runs of brick, but the mortar in the outer run is distinctly different...yellow...from the mortar on the interior run...white. Repointing of the exterior joints? Perhaps...we'll see. We didn't see a similar pattern in the brick closet that flanks the south side of the hearth, but the upper courses have been toppled and we haven't removed them yet.

The fill within this brick closet consists of burned, crushed oyster shell. We know it is burned because oyster shell turns blue-gray and the texture becomes friable when burned. Contractors burned oyster shell to make lime for mortar and plaster. We can't tell yet whether this is a surviving construction feature or if the burned oyster was used to line the bottom of the closet. If you examine the photograph to the right you'll note some white speckling to the right of the trowel. That's the burned oyster. I'll try to remember to take a close-up shot tomorrow. It is quite distinct.

No skeletons in this closet...not yet anyway.

Jim