Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18AP64 Maynard-Burgess House
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
The Maynard-Burgess House Site (18AP64) is the archeological remains associated with a standing 19th and 20th century African-American owned townhome in downtown Annapolis. The Maynard-Burgess House itself (MIHP# AA-1336) is believed to have originally been built between 1850 and 1858 as a three bay frame building. Prior to 1877, an addition was added to the back of the building. The site is situated on an urban city block at 163 Duke of Gloucester Street. It is located near the top of a small hill whose apex, Church Circle, drains into Annapolis Harbor. The surrounding landscape is heavily developed as an urban area. Soils at the site are Monmouth sandy loams.
163 Duke of Gloucester Street was originally part of Lot #33 in the 1718 Survey of Annapolis. There is some uncertainty about the earliest occupation of the property, but ownership has been traced back to at least 1762. Land records from the period do mention the presence of houses and other structures, but these appear to have been situated elsewhere on the lot (i.e. not in the vicinity of 18AP64). Around 1820, Lot #33 was sub-divided into 10 lots. Lots 9 and 10 of this subdivision, correspond to the location of the Maynard-Burgess House and these were sold together to Alexander Magruder in 1821 for $209. In 1838, Magruder sold the property to James Iglehart for $250. The low sale prices suggest that no structures were yet standing on Lots 9 and 10.
Iglehart was a merchant in Annapolis. In 1845 he was assessed for four house and one unimproved lot. In 1847, Iglehart sold the property to John Maynard “with buildings” for $400. John T. Maynard was an African-American born free in 1810 and raised in Anne Arundel County. Maynard’s parents have not been identified, and no free African-American Maynards were listed in any Anne Arundel census prior to 1840. Quite a few free black women and children were listed in Annapolis’ 1820 census, and Maynard may well have been the child of one of these women or a woman with a different surname.
Maynard obtained his official certificate of freedom in October, 1831. Three other Maynards obtained certificates of freedom between 1820 and 1830, and any of these men may have been related to John, possibly as brothers. In 1858, John administered the estate of a Lewis Maynard, born in 1821, indicating that they were probably related. Lewis died due $20 from the US government, which suggests that he was employed by the nearby US Naval Academy.
John Maynard married Maria Spencer sometime prior to 1834. Maria was about 19 years old and held as a slave by an Annapolis woman named Mildred Robinson. In 1834, John paid Robinson $80 to purchase Maria’s three-year-old daughter, Phebe Ann Spencer, who was described as a “mulatto”. The sale was not recorded until 1857, after Robinson’s death, and John manumitted Phebe Ann after the purchase was recorded. In May, 1838, John also purchased his wife from Robinson for $350, and John manumitted Maria in November, 1840.
The 1840 census recorded John Maynard, Maria, and Phebe Ann living in Annapolis. The location of their residence is unknown, however, they were living near other free African Americans including William Bishop, Henry Price, and Moses Lake. Maria and John had their first child, John Henry, in 1846 or 1847, and their second son, Lewis, was born in 1849.
In 1847, John Maynard purchased Lots 9 and 10 from James Inglehart for $400. As noted above, the property was sold with some structure(s), but the price of the property suggests that these buildings were probably quite insubstantial. In 1849, the average value of an improved lot in the city was $1640 and an unimproved lot was $141.
In 1850, the census recorded the value of the Maynard assets as $400, unchanged from the purchase price of Lots 9 and 10 three years earlier. By the 1860 census, Maynard’s real estate value had climbed to $1,000, with another $100 in personal assets. While Maynard’s property increased in value by $561, the average value of improved lots in the city dropped from $1640 to $1079 between 1849 and 1860. The increase in Maynard’s property value in the face of declining values in the city strongly argues that Maynard’s increase reflects the construction of a house on that property. The jump in property values between 1850 and 1860 and the inclusion of the house on an 1858 Bird’s-eye View of Annapolis argues that Maynard built the house between 1850 and 1858. Maynard subsequently added to the house in the 1870s because an addition appears to the rear of the original structure on an 1877 map.
In 1860, the census records the Maynard household as including John, Maria, Phebe, John H., Lewis, and a 53-year-old woman named Phoebe Spence (who may have been Maria’s mother). The neighboring household was composed of David Maynard, his wife Martha, their infant daughter, and Catherine League. David was a 25 year old African-American laborer whose relation to John T. is unknown. Martha, like Maria, was listed in the 1860 census as a washerwoman, and John was listed as a waiter. David and Martha lived in a section of the house which extended off the south wall of the main block onto the 161 Duke of Gloucester lot, with a party wall between the two households. No adults in either household were recorded in the census as being literate, but John T. Maynard signed his will in 1869 and a hand-written letter from Maria to her son in 1874 suggests otherwise.
In 1870, John Henry and Lewis were living with their father and mother as well as an 8 year old girl, Lucy, whose relation is unknown. The two sons were listed as barbers, and John was listed as a waiter. The Maynard estate was valued at $2,000. John Henry married 19 year old Martha Ready in September, 1871, and their daughter Maria Louisa was born in December, 1872. John Henry died sometime between 1876 and 1880, not long after his father had died. John T. Maynard died at age 64 on July 10, 1875. John named Maria the executor of his estate and left all his property to her and their two sons. John’s personal property was valued at $105.50. He was buried in St. Anne’s Cemetery.
In 1880, Maria was the head of the household at 163 Duke of Gloucester Street. The household included her widowed daughter-in-law Martha (John Henry’s wife), granddaughter Maria Louisa (John Henry and Martha’s daughter), and three boarders, including 30 year old Willis Burgess (who would later purchase the property in 1915).
Maria Maynard died between 1880 and 1900, but no record of her death has been located. John and Maria’s son Lewis was also dead without heirs by 1908. Martha Ready Maynard was remarried in 1885 to Thomas Johnson. Thomas may have died between 1885 and 1900, because by the 1900 census, Thomas was not living in the Duke of Gloucester Street household. In 1900, the household was composed of head of household Martha Maynard Johnson (a cook), 28 year old daughter Maria Louisa (a teacher), and Martha’s 69 year old widowed mother Margaret Blackstone (also a cook).
Maria Louisa married a barber, Upton C.C. Cooper, between 1900 and 1908. The financial situation of Maria Louisa and her husband was not good, because she defaulted on her mortgages in July of 1908. In October, Maria, Upton Cooper, and Martha Johnson sold the lot adjoining 163 Duke of Gloucester Street to George T. Feldmeyer for $1,000. The property became the site of a firehouse sometime between 1913 and 1921. Thirty-seven year old Upton Cooper died in January, 1910 of pulmonary tuberculosis. When the census taker arrived three months later, Maria Louisa Maynard Cooper was the head of household at 163 Duke of Gloucester Street. Living with her was her maternal grandmother, Margaret Blackstone, and Wells Fernandez, a 45 year old Naval Academy barber. Maria, who had no children, was listed in the 1910 census as a boarding house keeper.
Maria’s financial situation did not improve and she ended up defaulting on her mortgages again to Annapolis Savings Institution. The result of this round of insolvency was that the property was sold in a public sale to Willis Burgess, who had been recorded in the 1880 census as a boarder in the house. The 1920 census indicates that he had familial ties to the Maynard household. Margaret Blackstone is identified as Willis’ mother. She was also the mother of Martha Ready, the woman who married John Henry Maynard and bore Maria Louisa Maynard (Cooper), who was the final Maynard owner of the house. Besides Willis Burgess (who was working as a domestic at the Naval Academy) and his mother, the census also listed as household residents his 52 year old wife, Mary, two older daughters Louisa (age 26) and Naomi (age 23), and his 21 year old daughter Ella and her husband Arthur Wiley. The two older daughters were employed as domestics and Arthur Wiley was employed as a cook at the Naval Academy. Willis Burgess died in 1935 but the Burgess family continued to hold the property at 163 Duke of Gloucester Street until 1990.
The only documented archeological undertakings at 18AP64 are Phase I, II, and III excavations carried out by Archaeology in Annapolis (AIA) from 1990-1992. AIA initially became involved in archeology at the Maynard-Burgess House as an outgrowth of preservationists’ discussions about the origins and dating of the house. Initial architectural evaluations of the property suggested an 18th century origin for the building. Subsequent historical research for the Port of Annapolis (by then the property owners) indicated that the property was first occupied in the mid 19th century (as described above). AIA was invited by the property owners to test the site beginning in the fall of 1990, with the expectation that archeological data could help resolve the uncertainties that the building presented. The AIA consortium’s work is largely publically funded both through state funds (the University of Maryland) and grants from the City of Annapolis.
The Phase I excavations in the Fall of 1990 entailed digging 19 shovel test pits (STPs) roughly 30.4 cm (1 ft) in diameter to sterile subsoil. All soils were screened. Sixteen STPs were excavated in the yard area, around the 1870s addition to the original structure, while 3 STPs were excavated in the crawl space of the original ca. 1850 house. Artifacts were collected by natural strata. These STPs verified that archeological remains and potential features were present on the property and the project was immediately expanded to a Phase II level of investigation.
Phase II testing in the fall and winter of 1990-91 entailed the excavation of three 76.2 X 152.4 cm (2.5 X 5 ft) test units: two outside the structure and along its western foundation, and one inside the crawl space of the original house. The units were excavated to obtain detailed information about stratigraphic integrity in the yard and below the house floorboards, and to test for the presence of builder’s trenches associated with the main frame of the house. Excavation was carried out by a combination of hand-troweling and shovel-skimming. All units were excavated by natural stratigraphic layers up to 15.24 cm (6 in). Strata thicker than that were terminated arbitrarily at 15.24 cm and excavation continued as a new arbitrary level. All soil was screened through hardware cloth, with the exception of some wet screen samples which were taken for all units within the house, rear addition, and within selected features. These were wet-screened through 1/8 inch mesh screen.
Significant features were encountered during the Phase II excavations and so the project was expanded again to a Phase III data recovery effort the following year. Phase III work consisted of extensive excavations in the yard and the house interior in 1.52 X 1.52 m (5 X 5 ft) test units, 76.2 X 152.4 cm (2.5 X 5 ft) test units, and trenches of varying sizes. Forty-nine additional units and trenches were excavated during the Phase III portion of the study. The methods of excavation were identical to those utilized during Phase II work.
Phase I-III excavations of the house and yard identified a post-1889 cellar filled with household refuse, a post-1905 barrel privy also filled with household discards, evidence of circa 1850-1874 construction episodes beneath the mid-1870s rear addition (and specifically a brick work surface), and an apparently unfinished mid 19th century stone and brick foundation. These and other deposits contained a rich artifact assemblage including faunal remains, glass vessels, ceramics, and buttons.
The majority of the assemblage dates to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some mid-19th century deposits. A minimum number of 91 glass and 41 ceramic vessels was recovered from the post-1889 cellar along with a concentration of tin cans and faunal remains. The post-1905 barrel privy contained a 1,026 bone faunal assemblage and 25 glass bottles. Dense artifact concentrations were recovered beneath the 1874-1877 rear addition, including a large quantity of faunal remains.
A complete artifact inventory is not provided in the full site report available at MHT, but appendices do provide tallies for certain artifact classes. The assemblage reported in the appendices included 123 activity items (flowerpot fragments), 285 clothing items (all buttons), 6,828 kitchen-related artifacts, 1 personal item (a whiteware chamberpot fragment), and 282 miscellaneous objects (2 human teeth, 64 rodent bones, 186 cat bones, and 30 dog bones). The kitchen-related artifacts were 994 ceramic sherds (3 Astbury, 20 tin-glazed earthenware, 8 Jackfield, 1 Buckley, 3 North Devon, 85 creamware, 117 pearlware, 10 Chinese porcelain, 19 other porcelain, 38 bone china, 2 ironstone, 550 whiteware, 12 refined earthenware, 37 coarse earthenware, 3 Rockingham, 1 yelloware, 16 redware, 1 Nottingham stoneware, 1 Fulham stoneware, 4 Westerwald stoneware, 6 white salt-glazed stoneware, 1 other salt-glazed stoneware, 46 domestic stoneware sherds, 5 imported stoneware sherds, and 5 miscellaneous stoneware sherds) and 5,834 faunal objects (2,671 mammal bones, 1,167 bird bones, 55 reptile bones, 1,000 fish bones, 889 unidentified animal bones, 8 oyster shells, 38 other shells, and 6 crab shells).
Interpretation concentrated upon the diverse ways in which material consumption could both incorporate African-Americans into Victorian America and provide distance from the Jim Crow racism which shaped African-American labor, market participation, and civil liberties. Analyses of species abundance and food cuts in the faunal assemblage were used to examine changes in African-American food consumption during the late 19th century and the impact of mass-marketed foods upon African-American foodways. Glass vessels were examined for the type of product they contained, the geographical location of the producer, the quantity of vessels, and the time which elapsed between the production and discard of the vessels. These analyses were used to interpret the households’ attachment to nationally advertized products, the types of bottled goods consumed, and the rate at which bottled goods were being purchased and used. Ceramic minimum vessel counts were used to evaluate the households’ observation of Victorian dining etiquette and determine how and where ceramic vessels were being acquired. Ceramic sherd analyses were used to examine formation processes in the house’s back yard and establish basic chronologies for deposits. This assemblage provides a sufficient quantity and diversity of material remains to rigorously document and critically interpret one African-American household’s negotiation of Victorian America, Jim Crow racism, and the emergence of mass consumer culture.
The extensive work at 18AP64 resulted in the excavation and documentation of the vast majority of the site. Nonetheless, there may still be potential to examine the history of the Maynard-Burgess House through archeology. Specifically, if the rear addition to the original structure should ever be removed, it would present an opportunity for more thorough investigation of the work surfaces and construction episodes beneath it. Additionally, excavation at 143 Market Street could provide additional information related to the household and may contain outbuilding features associated with the Maynard family and 18AP64. The site should be continued significant for research purposes.
|
