There is the possibility that a mid-nineteenth century Corn House will be moved to Rich Hill, a historic property owned by Charles County. A location was selected back from the house, but it was necessary to see what might or might not have been there in the past. So Charles County Planning Archeologist Esther Read was requested to investigate. (Field work is listed in reverse chronological order.)
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We returned to Rich Hill on the weekend of July 10-11. On Saturday eight volunteers participated. This included four CCASM members (Mary, Elsie, Ned, and Melissa) and three students from UMBC (Abigail, Ashton, and Dee) plus Dee's teenage daughter Rayne. After Ned, Dee, and Rayne bailed out the two units opened last time, Mary troweled down the heavy mud layer in the unit. It had rained the night before. Last time we were here the soil was hard packed, and we had wanted some moisture to make it easier to dig, but this was a little more than was wanted. Ned and Esther opened up two new units adjacent to the existing units. Ned, Melissa, Abigail, Ashtyn, Dee and Rayne worked the new unit while Esther and Elsie mapped the STPs and metal-detecting points dug on June 26. The search for property corner markers was unsuccessful.
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| Excavating New Unit |
On Sunday July 11 three CCASM volunteers (Melissa, Ned, and Elsie) returned to the site. Melissa with help from Ned troweled down the four units to a uniform depth while Elsie screened. Esther made drawings and took photos of the units. Then the feature that was near the center of the four units was excavated. The feature had various artifacts including the rim of a broken chamber pot.
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| Recording Unit and Troweling Unit |
On Monday July 12 Ned and Esther returned to the site to backfill the units.
(Thanks to Elsie for the info and to Esther for the photos.)
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Investigations continued on the weekend (June 26-27). In addition to finding a location for the Corn House, it was also an opportunity to see what archaeology could tell us about this part of the site. On Saturday June 26 ten volunteers assisted Esther with the digging of STPs. This included eight CCASM members or former members (Steve, Joe, Mary, Elsie, Denise, Ned, Melissa, and Carol) and two students from UMBC (Abigail and Ashtyn). We had indicated we needed additional screens, and Ned made three for us to use. (Thanks Ned.) So we were able to have five teams working at the same time. We plan to wash the artifacts at the upcoming Monday Lab. This will provide a better understanding of what was there.
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| Digging more STPs |
On Sunday June 27 six volunteers (Steve, Melissa, Mary, Ned, Elsie, and Carol) returned to the site to excavate a 3'x3' unit in an area of interest. The artifacts included small brick fragments, charcoal, ceramics, a few rusted nails, and fire cracked rocks. We encountered a feature that required the opening of another unit. So we will need to return to learn more about the feature that was exposed.
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| Excavating Unit |
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On Saturday May 15 six CCASM members (Denise, Joe, Linda, Doug, Julie, and Carol) assisted Esther with the digging of ten shovel test pits (STPs) in the proposed area. But first Joe weed-whacked the weeds and poison ivy (lots of poison ivy) in the area where the STPs were to be dug. We didn't find a lot of artifacts- mostly brick fragments but also some stoneware, green bottle glass, a crude projectile point, and other miscellaneous artifacts including whiteware. One STP had almost a half pound of bricks, and Esther believes that this indicates the slave quarters were in this area.
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| Digging STPs |