Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18BA370 Todd's Inheritance
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
Todd’s Inheritance (18BA370) is a mid-to-late 17th century plantation with occupation into the 20th century. It is located along the Patapsco Neck, on North Point in Baltimore County, Maryland. The site consists of a house, 2 barns and a large family cemetery. The archeological remains consist of slave quarters and an orchard and gardens. The original house was burned by the British in 1814. The standing house was listed as ‘Todd Farmhouse’ on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1973 (NR-202). It is situated on a flat, low lying peninsula north of Shallow Creek and east of a local road. Shallow Creek is a tributary of the Patapsco River. There is some evidence of prehistoric habitation at the site as well. The site area measures about 213 x 152 m (700x500 ft). The property is owned by the State of Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and is leased to the Friend’s of Todd’s Inheritance Committee.
Prehistoric occupation in the area of North Point has been documented during surveys of the vicinity in the 1970s and 1980s. Several prehistoric sites, dating from the Archaic to the Late Woodland periods have been identified in the vicinity. Specific to Site 18BA370, the Todd family reportedly had a large basket of projectile points collected from the fields around the Todd family farm. An artifact board that hung in the Todd residence, and was photographed during a 1988 archeological survey, displayed 59 projectile points representing a span of occupation of over 8,000 years in the Shallow Creek area.
Historic period occupation of the property occupied by Todd’s Inheritance is well-documented. The Todd residence was the first plantation settled in Baltimore County. According to historic records, Todd began acquiring land on Patapsco Neck in 1664 and finally settled there by 1669. In 1664 Todd bought part of the land known as “Road River” (later “Old Road”) and in 1669 he purchased a parcel called “North Point” from Ralph Williams. Also in 1669, Lord Baltimore granted Todd an additional 700 acres on Patapsco Neck for bringing 14 people to the colony. Then in 1670, Todd patented a large tract adjoining his holdings to the north and called it “Denton” after his hometown in England. Research suggested that the extant house stands on either the “Denton” or the “Old Road” parcel. Things in Baltimore County remained relatively unchanged for several generations. The Todd family would have been comparatively wealthy among their neighbors and increased trade in the early 18th century would have ensured their access to luxury goods. The plantation would have produced tobacco and also would likely have had an orchard and vegetable garden. The Todd house was the site of the first Presbyterian Church services held on the neck when in 1714 Thomas Todd III received permission from the Baltimore County Court to do so. An article from 1750 suggested that the Todd house may have been destroyed by a hurricane that hit North Point. This would imply that there were 2 earlier Todd houses. In 1764 Thomas Todd V surveyed his family lands and added an additional 56 acres. He renamed the entire parcel “Todd’s Inheritance”. Throughout the 18th century the number of slaves on the plantation increased, numbering 30 by 1799.
At the time of the War of 1812 Bernard Todd (son of Thomas Todd V) and his wife occupied the house. American troops used the Todd estate as their headquarters while awaiting an enemy attack. The house was subsequently burned down in 1814, indicating that it was known as an American post by the British. The original house and estate buildings were briefly described when, several years later, heirs filed a claim with Congress for damages. The dwelling was said to be a 2-story frame structure measuring 10.67 x 12.19 m (35 x 40 ft), which had been repaired the year before. There was a 1 ½-story frame kitchen that measured 7.62 x 9.144 m (25 x 30 ft), a 2-story frame barn that measured (40 x 45 ft), a 1 1/2-story frame stable that measured 9.144 x 18.29 m (30 x 60 ft) and attached sheds and 4 one-story log buildings (all 6.096 m² (20 ft)). At the time of the war the Todd plantation had 17 slaves. Their quarters were presumably not destroyed. In 1853 the Todd heirs received $4,315 in compensation for the property lost nearly 40 years before. Although it took several decades to receive compensation for the destroyed house, by 1816 a dwelling, either brick or frame, was constructed on the property. An addition was built between 1836 and 1841 and, again, it is unclear if this was the brick portion or the frame portion of the dwelling. At some point after the Civil War, the daughter-in-law of Bernard Todd raised the gables on the third floor to create more space. It is presumed that the Italianate decorative pieces were also added at that time to make the house appear more up to date. Further changes were made to the house sometime between 1904 and 1907. At that time, the Todd property consisted of 2 dwellings, 12 tenant houses, and a store.
Following the Great Depression, Patapsco Neck grew increasingly suburban and there were massive improvements to the local infrastructure. In 1899 Fort Howard was built at the end of North Point and was accessible only via the road that passed by the Todd house. Fort Howard’s development was expanded during World War II and spread north until it was parallel with the Todd house across the street by 1944. During the ownership of Thomas B. Todd, Jr. the property was reduced to 1.62 ha (4 ac). After his death in 1952 the house and lot remained within family ownership until 1975 when it was conveyed to the Cook family. The Todd house is among the oldest surviving buildings in the North Point area.
The earliest archeological work conducted at the site consisted of various school groups who were allowed by a former owner (Cook, Jr.) to excavate periodically on the property during the mid- to late-20th century. Local informants reported that those excavations were located at the edge of the yard along a local road, not near the house (the house is about 15 m from the road). Artifacts were collected but there is no known documentation of provenience.
In 1988 a cultural resource survey of the Black Marsh area was conducted. The lands around Todd's Inheritance were recorded as an archeological site at that time and additional work was recommended for the site. Although a walkover survey was conducted in the area, no artifacts were collected from Site 18BA370.
A Phase I/II archeological investigation was conducted at the site in December 2000 (although reported as a Phase I, the excavation of 5 large test units qualifies the work as a Phase II). The Maryland DNR and the Friend’s of Todd’s Inheritance were undertaking a project to stabilize and restore the extant house and its immediate environs and install a sewer line to connect to the city sewer line. The objectives of the archeological investigation were: 1) to identify cultural resources around the house and its immediate environs and along the proposed sewer line right-of-way; 2) to assess how those identified archeological resources contribute to the significance of the NRHP property; 3) to find evidence of the whole range (300+ years) of occupation of the property; and 4) to find evidence of the house that existed prior to be being during the War of 1812. The work was supported by a grant from Preservation Maryland. An area of approximately 769 m² (8,280 ft²) immediately around the house was subjected to testing; the rest of the site was not tested. A total of 121 shovel test pits (STPs) were excavated; 98 of those STPs were placed at 3.048 m (10 ft) intervals in the area surrounding the house and 23 STPs were dug a 3.048 and 6.096 m intervals along the fence line to the south/southwest of the house along the area designated for the proposed sewer line. Five test units (Tus) were then dug in the area of the house. Three of the test units (Tus 1, 2 and 5) measured about 1 m² and the remaining 2 (Tus 3 and 4) were of varied but smaller sizes. All excavated soils were screened through 1.27 cm (½”) hardware cloth.
Artifact distributions across the site revealed functionally distinct activity areas relating to different time periods. Artifacts recovered as a result of shovel testing ranged in age from the 17th century to the 20th century. As is common in household assemblages, the majority of artifacts (86%) recovered from the STPs belonged to the Kitchen (53.5%) and Architectural (32.5%) Groups. Faunal material (animal bone and oyster shell) made up a large portion of the kitchen-related material. The oyster shell collected from the site represented approximately 10% of what was excavated; most of the shell was returned to the STPs and units when backfilling. Most of the glass was found in STPs and test units closest to the house but almost a quarter of the glass was also collected from the STPs placed in the area of the proposed sewer line, much of which was modern bottle glass that had been thrown onto the property from the road. It appeared that dark green wine bottle glass was concentrated on the east side of the house while pressed table glass was found exclusively in the west yard.
Ceramics were represented primarily by whiteware and pearlware. The distribution of the ceramics across the site was quite distinct. The creamware sherds were found in the south yard, pearlware was found almost exclusively in the east and south yards with the largest concentration to the east, and whiteware, which was found west, east, south, and southeast of the house, had its larger concentrations in the west yard. Architectural material was mainly nails and window glass. The presence of hand-wrought nails and daub attested to the existence of an earlier structure at the site. Other functional groups accounted for a small portion of the overall assemblage. Pipe stem fragments were found almost exclusively in the east yard but other fragments were collected from the north side of the house and other scattered locations.
A large area on the north/northwest side of the house had been surfaced with coal ash and cinders. Those layers alternated with layers of soil which suggested that there may have been accumulation over time. It is possible that the coal ash and cinder fill was purposefully placed in order to raise the yard surface and create a gentler slope toward the road. Two small areas on the north side of the house had been paved with oyster shell, the westernmost of which overlaps with the coal ash layer (it is unclear if the shell sits above or below the coal ash). This was a solid layer that measured between approximately 6-12 cm (0.2 and 0.4 ft) thick. The distributions of coal ash and oyster shell possibly reflected an accumulation or reuse of discarded material for paving surfaces and fill. A layer of brick rubble was encountered on the south side of the house, indicating the presence of an earlier structure at that location. Evidence of a brick foundation or pier was found in 2 STPs just to the southwest of the rubble where several courses of laid brick were encountered. In an area just beyond the brick rubble on the south side of the house, and in an area on the east side of the house, a layer of burned wood and brick flecks was identified. The layers showed clear evidence of the fire that reportedly destroyed the original house in 1814.
Excavations at TU 1, which was placed along the east foundation of the house, showed that the extant house may have been built on the foundations of the earlier house. The brick foundation of the present house was found to be resting on top of a stone foundation. Two different mortars were used for the stone and brick foundations indicating that they were built at different periods. The junction of the two materials was just above the observed burned layer that resulted from the destruction of the early house. No cultural or architectural features were encountered on Tus 2 or 3.
Two postholes were observed in TU 4. The unit was placed near the foundation on the south side of the kitchen wing (the west side of the house). The wall on that side of the structure was too unstable to dig next to and the whole foundation of the kitchen wing was surrounded by a poured concrete surface that abuts the wall and extends about 1.524 m out. It was determined that the postholes dated to the mid- to late 19th century and may have been supports for an earlier porch or steps. Another posthole had been located during STP excavations on the east side of the house. It was dated to after 1812 and cut into earlier layers. TU 5 was opened to reveal more of the in situ brick feature first identified during the STP excavations. However, the brick feature did not extend into the test unit. A local informant indicated that two slave houses had once stood in this area and were occupied by freed African Americans into the 20th century. The brick feature may have been related to a slave dwelling or to some other type of outbuilding. Artifacts recovered from TU 5dated to the 1830s, with some dating from the late 17th century, and very few from the first half of the 18th century.
The area of STP excavations along the proposed sewer line to the west of the house may have been disturbed by the earlier amateur excavations by school children. The STPs nearest the house contained layers of coal ash and cinders that likely represented late 19th and early 20th century fill. A neighbor informed the archeologists that the area along the fence line had been extensively filled during the mid-20th century and that the owner had dumped truck-loads of fill into the area. The informant also indicated that a springhouse had been located near the fence line in the approximate middle of the proposed sewer line and that the roof of the spring house had at one time been at about the same elevation as the present road surface. The artifacts from these STPs included late 20th century bottle glass, oyster shell, some brick chunks, and small unidentifiable pieces of iron. Archeological monitoring was suggested if the proposed sewer line was to extend below 0.9144 m.
A total of 3,580 historic artifacts were collected from the site during the archeological investigations (as reported in tables and the artifact inventory). Several activity-related artifacts were collected from the site (n=156). There were 118 fragments of lighting glass, 21 flower pot sherds, 3 toys (1 porcelain doll, 1 tea set part, and 1 unidentified ceramic toy), 1 rubber hose piece, 2 fishing floats, 5 auto parts, 1 metal ring, 4 pieces of chain link, and 1 staple. In all, 1,182 architecture-related materials were retained. There were 310 brick fragments, 360 pieces of window glass, 6 wrought nails, 93 cut nails, 46 wire nails, 285 unidentified nail fragments, 31 mortar and 6 daub pieces, 1 bracket, 2 nut/bolt, 2 spikes, 1 screw, 6 pieces of tar paper, 1 (modern) piece of electrical wire and 1 electrical rod, 1 metal plumbing piece, 1 washer, 19 pieces of roofing slate, and 10 pieces of asbestos siding. The only clothing items retrieved from the site were 4 buttons.
Kitchen-related items consisted of 365 bottle glass shards (80 from the sewer line), 13 table glass fragments, 3 pieces of milk glass, and 556 ceramic sherds (54 redware, 25 creamware, 109 pearlware, 155 whiteware, 29 tin-glazed earthenware, 73 porcelain, 13 ironstone, 9 yellowware, 3 imported stoneware (2 brown), 53 domestic gray stoneware, 3 domestic brown stoneware, 1 industrial stoneware bottle, 5 unidentified stoneware sherds, and 24 unidentified, mostly burnt, sherds). Although the Todd’s were some of the wealthiest people in Baltimore there was a noticeable absence of the refined white stoneware that was usually associated with well-off families in the 18th century. A total of 1,004 miscellaneous kitchen items were found including 2 metal pull tabs, 4 nut/seed/pit, 1 milk glass lid liner, 3 mussel shells, 1 fish scale, 1 unidentified faunal, 722 animal bone fragments, and 270 oyster shell fragments.
Artifacts in the miscellaneous group (n=234) included 1 piece of burnt glass, 51 unidentified metal objects, 3 pieces of plastic, 177 pieces of coal, 1 wood fragment, and 1 piece of string. Only 22 personal artifacts were found including 18 tin-glazed earthenware chamber pot sherds (late 17th/early 18th c.), 1 yellowware chamber pot sherd, 1 bone brush(?) handle, and 1 Lincoln penny (1947). The tobacco-related group consisted of 24 white clay pipe stem fragments with bore diameters ranging from 5/64” to 8/64”. A mean date of 1689 was assigned to the collection. There were also 8 pipe bowl pieces and 1 bowl/stem segment in the assemblage. Three (modern) plastic cigarette filters were also found. There were 6 arms-related artifacts in the site assemblage. They consisted of 5 bullets and shotgun shells and 1 gray gunflint.
Very few prehistoric artifacts were found at the site during the Phase I/II investigations. Lithic artifacts included 8 flakes and pieces of debitage (quartz and chert) and 1 quartz biface fragment. There was also 1 Late Woodland period Potomac Creek pottery sherd in the assemblage. The artifacts were found on the east and southeast sides of the site. It appeared to the excavators that the materials were redeposited rather than part of an intact site.
Todd’s Inheritance (18BA370) is a mid-to-late 17th century plantation with occupation into the 20th century. Ample evidence has been recovered from the site to suggest at least Woodland period occupation in the area as well. The historical site consists of a house, 2 barns and a large family cemetery. The archeological remains consist of possible slave quarters and an orchard and gardens. The original house was burned by the British in 1814 and the extant structure was built on its foundations ca. 1816. Evidence of late 17th century occupation was evidenced primarily on the east side of the house, later 18th century occupation was indicated by the assemblage from the south yard area, and the west side of the house had distinctly late 19th and early 20th century artifacts. The Todd’s Inheritance site is significant for its association with the War of 1812 and the extant dwelling is one of the few 19th century farmhouses to survive the industrialization of North Point. The archeological testing of the house precinct indicated that archeological resources associated with the existing house are preserved and contribute to the significance of Todd’s Inheritance. Further investigations on the property would likely reveal additional cultural resources associated with the early occupation of the plantation. Additional archeological testing and data recovery is recommended if further earth-moving activities at the site are planned.
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