More on Church & Cemetery

April found the following quotation last year pertaining to an Episcopal Church and cemetery at Port Tobacco and put it on the Port Tobacco page of our website: www.gibbarchaeology.org:


"Port Tobacco contains about eighty houses; most of which are of wood, and very poor. There is a large English episcopalian church on the border of the town, built of stone, which formerly was an ornament to the place, but is now entirely out of repair; the windows are all broken, and the road is carried through the church-yard, over the graves, the paling that surrounded it having been torn down"(Weld 1807: 137-138).

Isaac Weld recorded this observation while traveling through town in 1797. The "English episcopalian church" to which he refers was the Anglican church that may have been built in 1708/9, but more likely is a replacement of that edifice. We haven't tracked down the history of the church. Weld tells us that the road, likely that leading south toward Warehouse Point, cut through the cemetery which had been enclosed with a paling (a fence erected in a ditch). If memory serves, we have another reference, possibly earlier, noting the stacking of gravestones against the church.

More late-breaking news as it becomes available. We'll be blogging later this week on some of the information on the jailhouse that Elsie has unearthed.

Jim

Source: Weld, I. (1807). Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada During the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797. London, John Stockdale.

Note: There is a lot more about the churches of Port Tobacco contained in a previous blog post.

News Grab Bag

Due to an unstable Internet connection, I've been out of the loop for several days. That does not mean, however, that work has stopped or even slowed. Here are a few updates.

We will hold laboratory sessions at Port Tobacco on Wednesday, July 9 and Saturday, July 12. These will be in the shade in front of the courthouse (inside if it is raining or oppressively hot) between 9:30AM and 3PM. We hope folks down in the Charles County area will be able to join us.

Last week we started a regular Tuesday/Thursday lab at the Maryland Historical Trust in Crownsville. The Trust has generously renewed last year's arrangement in letting us have space in the lab. We are there from 9AM to 3PM on those days for the next eight weeks or so.

We are still trying to wrap up the report on the field collection survey, but the amount of mapping data we collected seems endless as we enter it all into a digital database. I still hope to finish the report by the end of this coming week.

On the Fourth of July I set up a continuous loop slide show and an artifact table at the Thomas Stone National Historic Site as part of their celebration of the nation's birthday and of the life of Thomas Stone, one of Maryland's four signers of the Declaration of Independence. The Park Service staff was wonderful to work with and I hope we will conduct many more collaborative projects. I am particularly interested in the archaeology that the NPS conducted at Thomas Stone's house site prior to its reconstruction after a catastrophic fire some years ago. Eventually, PTAP will look at many of the town's outlying plantation and farm sites, mills, smithies, and other archaeological sites as we bring the Port Tobacco story into greater focus.

Our forays outside of town began this past spring with the survey of Mr. Edelen's fields and will continue in late summer and fall as we begin to seek some of the Civil War related sites in the immediate vicinity. Steve Lohar, one of our regular volunteers, has already provided some information on these sites and one of the visitors whom I met at the Thomas Stone event has some ideas on where others might be located.

I could go on, but suffice it to say that the project moves ahead at full steam even if our presence on site is not as obvious as it was during the Archeological Society of Maryland's field session. We were sad to see the tents come down and the excavations filled in, but expect to re-erect those tents and open new windows into the area's past in the very near future.

Jim

Native American Area Video

If you like the videos, take a moment to rate them over on YouTube to help others find them.
http://www.youtube.com/PortTobaccoArch

Thanks.

-April

Wade House Video

Happy 4th of July!

-April

Jailhouse Video

I've begun putting together some short videos about our work at Port Tobacco using photographs and videos from the ASM field session. This is a new frontier for us so please give us some feedback.

The first video made is below. There are three done and posted on our new You Tube channel and I'd like to think each one is a little better than the last.



-April

Field Session Finds

So we have done our excavation, washing and cataloging of artifacts is ongoing, and now the analysis and report writing can start to take shape. Probably one of the least known aspects of this process is the photographing of artifacts for not only the report but also for presentations and lectures. Today I am spending the day trying different techniques with my digital camera to get some pictures of artifacts to use in our final report and also for a slide show presentation this weekend. Below you will see some of the photographs I have taken so far. There will be more to come.

Glass tableware stem pieces recovered from Unit 11 in the "Native American" site.

Aboriginal pottery found in Unit 11 in the "Native American" site.

North Italian slipware, Chinese porcelain, and Combed slipware from Unit 5 in the "Native American" site.

Trade bead found in Unit 13 in the "Centennial Hotel" site.

I am using a Sony "point and shoot" digital camera with an optical and digital zoom along with a photo box in a well lit area to get a close enough and detailed picture of the artifacts. I will post more of our photographic collection as we start to do more detailed analysis of the field session.

Iam heading to NY today to celebrate the 4th of July and my grandmother's 90th Birthday. I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend.

Remember, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the lab at the Maryland Historical Trust for artifact cleaning and cataloging.

-Peter

Randomonium

The the ASM Field session is over and it's nice to look back at some of the shots of the crew and volunteers. I have some pretty neat pictures on my camera and I know that Pete and April have many as well. I just hope Pete doesn't post the pictures of me threatening our intern Steve as well as Steve Israel. Below are a few shots for your enjoyment:

Here, April tells Jim and Dio what is going on.

During the evening relax time, Franny and April engage as do Dio and Pete.

Jim, April, and Dio discuss findings with some volunteers. Unknown homeless person resting on bucket.