CCASM members along with other volunteers will be working with Charles County Archaeologist Esther Reed to survey land on which the Village of Port Tobacco plans to build a "green" parking area. The parking area will allow visitors to more easily access the the Port Tobacco Village Agricultural Heritage Museum as well as the nearby One-Room School House. The Village has applied for a Southern Maryland Heritage grant to help fund this.
The survey will involve digging STPs on the proposed site for the parking area. The site is on Chapel Point Road between the One-Room School House /Causeway Road and Murphy's Store (map). We refer to the site as the Port Tobacco Barn site.
Upcoming dates are TBD
Around the end of the year Esther submitted a site form for this site The site will now be referred to as the North Port Tobacco Site and has site number 18CH998.
Tuesday November 22 CCASM members Elsie and Steve along with James and Wes volunteered with Esther to retrieve additional metal artifacts from the blacksmith area. Wes who was surveying the site also helped by sighting in the location of the exposed building footprint as well as the the loci used to determine the location of the STPS.On Monday November 21 CCASM members Denise, Joe, Mary, Gary, Elsie, Ned, and Steve along with James volunteered with Esther to excavate part of the footprint of the building, to excavate and screen a 17'x4' area referred to as 'above the forge' and to continue to retrieve metal and other artifacts found on the surface.
Around November 15 the Village had the woods to the north bulldozed to remove the trees so that the green parking lot could be built there. In an area that the brush was so thick that we had not been able to penetrate it, the bulldozer uncovered a building that could have been a blacksmith shop - lots of metal.
Wednesday November 9 CCASM members Mary, Gary, and Ned volunteered with Esther to continue to dig STPS in the woods. We had to cut paths through the underbrush in order to reach the areas where the SPTS were to be dug.
Monday November 7 CCASM members Pat, Denise, Mary, Ned, and Elsie started digging STPs in the woods on the northern part of the site while Carol worked with Esther to measure location of key flags relative to the the east and west corners of the corn crib. The most interesting thing we found was a label that is probably for a bottle of mirage perfumed oils. The language is Farsi. It was on the surface.
Sunday October 30 CCASM members Elsie, Pat Ned, Peggy, Carol,
and Evelyn were joined by Tim to volunteer with Esther on continuing to dig STPS. And we even choose an artifact of the day - this small sherd of early eighteenth century scratch blue white salt glazed stoneware. We've found a few other small interesting artifacts, but this is the first we decided to share.
Saturday October 29 CCASM members Elsie, Denise, Joe, Ned, Peggy, Carol, and Evelyn (who drove up from South Carolina) were joined by Tim to volunteer with Esther on continuing to dig STPS.
Monday October 24 CCASM members Linda, Elsie, Denise, Ned, Pat, Steve, and Carol were joined by Malinda and James to start the survey of the area to the north of the corn crib. Esther Reed is the principal investigator.STPs were to be dug at 25' intervals, and the locations were flagged. We were able to dig about seventeen STPs, and they were all at least two feet deep. This is an area where there could be soil deposits from a nearby flooded creek as well as soil eroded from the nearby hills. It is an area where there could have been Portobaco Indians. This was also part of the 1729 Charles Town also known as Portabaco and of the earlier Chandlers Town. We did find a few artifacts but nothing to indicate anything significant that would impact the development of the parking area.
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