Upcoming Archival Research Demonstration

Tuesday, April 14, at 7:30, the Charles County Archaeological Society will meet in room LR102 (that's in the basement of the 'Learning Center,' known by the over-40 crowd as the library) at the College of Southern Maryland. If interested in attending, please contact me for directions.

I will demonstrate several facets of conducting local historical research online, emphasizing maps, censuses, and land title research. The reason for holding the meeting at the College (which is just a few miles north of Port Tobacco) is that we will need a good Internet connection. Connectivity at Port Tobacco is unreliable and slow.

This will be a demonstration and not a workshop. For a workshop we would have to meet in a computer pod where everybody would have a machine to work on. Perhaps we can manage that later in the year.

Please join us.

Jim

Site Map Update

Here is the latest site map with all the work we did during the March campaign now plugged in. We are surely shovel testing our way through the town!

I think after all the work we do this summer I will break up the map so its easier to read and see. I will add close up views of the excavation units, existing buildings and more as we gather more information.

- Peter

In the News, Soon

I had a pleasant interview with Washington Post journalist Ann Siegal today at Port Tobacco. We walked around the various sites in the town center, talking of plans for the field session and beyond. Ms Siegal is doing a piece, due out in early May, on opportunities for the public to visit archaeological sites and to participate in the Washington area. We upload a link to the piece when it comes out.

Jim

Furnishing Burch House, Part 2

Thanks to the generosity of John Lawrence, Esq., we now have a suitable desk for the Burch House. Thank you John.
To make the house a little more useful as crew bunkhouse during the field session, we could use more in the way of cooking facilities: a microwave that isn't too decrepit, a camp stove or a large grill (we have a couple of small charcoal grills owned by ASM). A few pots and pans and cooking utensils would also be welcome additions.
Jim

Furnishing Burch House

Thanks to the generosity of Tom Forhan, the PTAP team has a desktop computer and a dorm-type refrigerator with which to outfit the Burch House. The refrigerator will be particularly useful during the May 22 to June 1 ASM field session...the crew will be cooking and eating on site.

The computer will be very helpful as we begin to move the laboratory work out of Annapolis and down to Port Tobacco. We will catalogue materials at the Burch House and, hopefully, reduce the amount of time that it takes us to get from fieldwork to final report (not that we don't already do so at amazingly fast rates).

We are still in need of some basic office furnishings such as a filing cabinet, desk, and desk chair, lamps, etc. All of these donations serve as matches for our various grants and, because the donations are to the Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco, a 501(3)c charitable organization, they may be tax deductible.

Thank you, Tom.

Jim

James E. Poindexter

At the beginning of March I wrote a brief blog about the Reverend James E. Poindexter.  What I didn't have was much to say.  That has now changed as we received a comment on the blog from his great great grandson Douglas Pugh III.  After some email communication, we have some more information on the good Reverend.  Here's a brief synopsis of what we know.

James Edward Poindexter was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, the eldest son of good family.  He was well educated and highly articulate and like many before him chose a scholarly and religious vocation.  He attended the seminary in Alexandria Va. and became a minister.

As a true son of Virginia he laid aside his religious studies and answered the Confederate call to arms after the guns were fired at Ft. Sumter.  In June 1861 he was a 2nd Lieutenant of the 38th Virginia Infantry.  in 1862 he was promoted to Captain and was also wounded.  In July of 1863 he was in the battle of Gettysburg under the command of General George Pickett.

Three days after Gettysburg he was listed as confined at Ft. McHenry in Baltimore.  He was then transfered to Johnson Island in Sandusky Ohio (the same one that our interns from Heidelberg University work on!) for two years and then finally transferred to Point Lookout in St. Mary's Maryland.  *my how it is such a small world*

Not much is known of his life after the war other than he served as a minister in several parishes in Maryland and Virginia.  He married and was ordained an Episcopal minister in 1871.  James Edward Poindexter died in 1911.

I would like to sincerely thank Douglass Pugh for his help in furthering our understanding of the townsfolk of Port Tobacco.

 

- Peter

Pushing the Limits of Sampling

Apropos April's comment about yesterday's blog, all sampling techniques have their strengths and weaknesses. Shovel testing is an effective tool in many, but not all cases. (It isn't very effective, for example, in identifying battle sites, cemeteries, and mills.) Our close-interval (25 ft) sampling in Port Tobacco, complemented by controlled surface collecting in the plowed fields, has led to the identification of many historic and prehistoric sites.

One might wonder, however, what we would have found if we employed other methods as well; e.g., metal detecting in the plowed fields might have identified outbuildings based on clusters of nails which are easily missed in surface collecting. Geophysical techniques such as magnetometry and ground penetrating radar in the town core might have revealed many distinct building footprints. Infrared photography undertaken in 1970 produced potentially useful results, identifying building sites. Unfortunately, the original photographic slides have been lost, so the original data are no longer available.

There are limitations to what we can do with the resources at hand, but the PTAP team will always use whatever we have to the extent possible. We'll also experiment with new methods and use old methods in new ways.

Jim