Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18BC133 The Independent Grays Privy
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
Site 18BC133, also known as the “Independent Gray’s Privy” or the “Hillen Tire Lot Privy”, is the archeological remains of a late 19th-early 20th century domestic privy in a neighborhood north of the Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. At the time of the site’s discovery (in the late 1990s), it was situated just east of the then extant Mechanics Court complex, a former alleyway within Baltimore’s Old Town area, immediately east of the Jones Falls Expressway (I-83). To the west were the buildings of the Hillen Tire Company complex. The landscape surrounding the site is heavily developed and the soils are intensely modified from their native state. Soils mapped for the area are classified as “Urban Land” meaning that 80% of the surface is covered either by buildings or by impervious surfaces such as asphalt or concrete.
Archival research indicated that the High Street properties in this area were occupied a minimum of four times. The earliest site-specific records to document occupation of the High Street block were associated with the1812 chancery case of Stansbury vs. Stansbury et al. They showed that, when the properties owned by Jacob Stansbury were partitioned among his heirs, his High Street lots already had been developed. Jacob bequeathed to his brother John a total of four lots on High Street, while his sister and wife of his business partner, Elizabeth Edwards, inherited two lots with houses on High Street. The Baltimore City Tax Assessment records for 1823-24 also indicate that several structures, probably dwelling houses occupied by tenants, had been erected along the west side of High Street. In 1845, two contiguous lots at the northwestern corner of High Steet and Mechanics Court were purchased by a volunteer militia unit known as the Independent Grays.
The Independent Grays Flank Company, a rifle regiment attached to the 53rd Regiment of the Maryland Volunteers, was organized in 1833 “on the cellar door at the corner of Gay and Exeter streets”. The Grays were one of a number of similar local organizations, among them the Patapsco Patriots, the Independent Blues, and the Lafayette Volunteers. All of these uniformed Volunteer Corps in Baltimore were associated with the First Light Division of Maryland Volunteers, a state militia unit authorized by the Maryland General Assembly. The Independent Grays also were attached as a unit of the Fifth Regiment of Maryland Volunteer Infantry.
The members of this group apparently were drawn from the ranks of the smaller merchants in the city. Membership was awarded by vote of the organization’s Standing Committee or general membership, and a member could be dismissed from the organization for missing too many activities or for conduct that the group considered objectionable. The unit’s officers received their commissions from the governor of the state. One of the Grey’s most influential members was Lt. Augustus T. Shutt, son of the owner of the sugar factory that operated at Hillen and Exeter streets between 1804 and 1829. By 1845, the younger Shutt owned a factory at 10 North Gay Street that manufactured “Fancy and Windsor” chairs. Other members of the organization included Thomas Humes (a wholesale liquor dealer at Hillen and High Streets who owned the houses on Mechanics Court), James Pawley, Jr. (a china and housewares merchant with a retail shop on Calvert Street and a stoneware kiln on Russell Street), and William Clagget (associated with the Claggett Brewery on East Lombard Street. At its height in the 1850s, the unit boasted 142 members, including 119 “muskets”, 5 officers, and an 18-piece band.
This combination social and military organization was governed by a Standing Committee whose minute book for the period between 1841 and 1847 is extant. These records show that, during the earliest years of its existence, the organization apparently met in a series of rented spaces in and around downtown Baltimore. For example, in September of 1841, the organization held its meetings in an armory located on Exchange Place in central Baltimore. Later that year, they moved to a rented property belonging to a Mr. Howard at the corner of Hillen and Exeter streets.
In April 1845, the group’s rented quarters at Hillen and Exeter streets were destroyed, probably by fire. The homeless organization maintained its meeting schedule by using the drill rooms or spaces lent by companion militia groups or civic organizations. On April 10, 1845, a special committee reported that a 43 X 100 ft lot was available on High Street near Hillen, and the membership voted the next month to acquire this lot, the boundaries of which incorporated Site 18BC133. By September of 1845, construction had been completed on a 30 X 60 ft armory building. It was this armory that appeared on the 1865 Baltimore City Tax Assessors’ notebooks on a double lot on High Street at its intersection with Mechanics Court. The organization’s property also included a 2 storey brick dwelling house north of the armory building.
Like today’s National Guard, the Independent Grays participated in a variety of military and social activities. Weekly drills and parades were held, and the entire group went on a summer encampment to a local area such as North Point or Frisby’s Woods. The organization maintained contacts with similar regiments, both within and outside of Maryland, and with a national organization known as the National Blues. The members also performed ceremonial functions. For example, the Grays provided an honor guard for Henry Clay’s funeral in 1851. Social events, generally sponsored to make money for equipment purchases or to pay rent on their drill hall, included concerts, lectures, and steamboat excursions on the Chesapeake Bay. Profits also were made by sub-letting the hall to other non-military organizations such as the local debating society.
The 1841-1847 Minute Book provided insights into the accoutrements and equipment associated with or maintained by the organization, elements of which might be expected to occur in the archeological record. Members apparently provided their own weapons and purchased their own uniforms. Uniform elements mentioned in the Standing Committee minutes included a “flat polished leather cap with a brass ‘G’, a cartridge box, a patent leather stock, gun belts, knapsacks, summer and winter fatigues, and dress uniforms with shoulder knots. The company maintained some basic items of encampment equipment like tin cups, wash basins, frying pans, cutlery and dishes, and site clearing tools. However, the group sometimes borrowed field pieces from other city units for ceremonial occasions and parades.
As national tensions rose during the 1850s, militia units like the Grays assumed increased importance. For example, some of the group’s members served under Col. Robert E. Lee during the John Brown incident at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. When the Civil War began, members of the unit split apart, and many served in both the Confederate and Union armies. Viewed by the Union armies that occupied Baltimore during the war as a suspicious (if not dangerous) group, the Independent Grays’ armory was raided by Union forces, who seized about 60 muskets and “some” accoutrements. Post-war efforts to reunite the unit were largely ineffective, and it disbanded during the 1870s.
Occupation of the properties along High Street, however, continued. The 1880 census indicated that the families of Christian Glantz (a bootmaker) and Patrick Lafferty (a drayman) lived immediately north of the former armory building. By 1890, both the original High Street dwellings and possibly the old armory building had been demolished. The Sanborn Fire Insurance map for 1890 depicts the former armory site as occupied by a large frame stable at the corner of Mechanics Court and High Street, and the parcel immediately north of it as vacant. Whether the frame stable actually was the recycled and reused armory building is a manner of conjecture, but it is probable that Lafferty was associated with its operation.
Between 1890 and 1914, the two large lots were subdivided to accommodate construction of seven dwellings. Each of these small rowhouses was 10 ft wide and approximately 42 ft deep and it occupied a lot measuring 10 X 60 ft. The rear boundaries of these cramped rowhouse properties were defined by the eastern wall of a single 40 X 70 ft building, identified on the 1914 Sanborn Map as a “wagon shed”. It seems likely that the dwellings were demolished between 1914 and 1920, for the 1920 Census listed no residential occupants on the 400 block of North High Street. After the Orleans Street Viaduct was constructed in 1934, much of the present asphalt-paved area apparently was used as a junkyard.
The site was first investigated beginning in 1996 as part of a combined Phase I, II, and III archeological investigation undertaken at the site of a new Juvenile Justice Center in Baltimore, MD. The site of the (then) proposed Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center encompassed two heavily developed blocks which encompassed Site 18BC133. A total of eight archeological sites were the subject of the investigation at the Phase I/II level of inquiry and at 18BC133 work would eventually expand to a Phase III level of inquiry. These investigations were required under the terms of Section 83-B, Paragraphs 6-517 and 5-618, of the Annotated Code of Maryland, and pursuant to the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement concluded between the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) and the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
In order to locate sites, fieldwork initially employed the mechanical removal of overlying modern features or surfaces, followed by the excavation of 5 m long mechanized trenches to assess stratigraphy and site integrity of the underlying deposits. The size of trenches were sometimes altered to better delineate features and to accommodate conditions in the field.
At 18BC133 a single mechanized trench was initially placed across the site to test for features. Stratigraphy within the mechanically excavated trench was recorded on excavation unit sheets, utilizing standard pedological nomenclature and Munsell readings. Stratigraphy and identified features were also drawn in plan view and were photographed in both black and white and color. To reduce the potential for sampling bias, a uniform 15-gallon volumetric sample was recovered from each mechanically excavated natural/cultural stratum. These soils were screened through hardware mesh and all cultural materials recovered from this procedure were retained for analysis.
Removal of the overlying asphalt parking lot surface exposed two features: an articulated complex of unmortared brick walls enclosing a square feature tentatively identified as a privy and a section of unmortared brick foundation wall that had been built over the walls of the privy shaft itself. The foundation wall feature was located at approximately the proper place to represent a ca. 1914 wagon shed depicted on the Sanborn Map of 1914. Based on these findings, the fill of the square privy shaft was tested by excavating a single 1 X 1 m unit into the fill matrix to assess its integrity. The fill was tested to a depth of 166 cm below datum and three cultural strata were noted and documented in profile on standardized forms and with photography.
Analysis of the artifact assemblage recovered from the Phase II investigation of the privy feature appeared to support an interpretation of vertical integrity. Stratum I contained primarily modern materials, including machine-made bottle and window glass, mixed historic ceramics, a late 19th century Irish “Home Rule” tobacco pipe, nails, plumbing fixtures and tiles, and unidentified metal fragments. The remains recovered in Stratum II included some earlier material intermixed with the more modern materials similar to those in Stratum I. Stratum III contained a higher proportion of animal bone and other faunal remains: mid 19th century ceramics (including creamware, stoneware, pearlware, Rockingham, and Bennington glazed wares), and a variety of glass (including portions of a lamp globe and a canning jar patented in 1861).
The stratigraphic differentiation within the privy feature and the sub-assemblages recovered suggested that the feature fill represented several discrete and identifiable depositional episodes and hence maintained some integrity. Due to the apparent integrity of its deposits, its potential association with a 19th century military and social group, and its physical proximity to contemporaneous assemblages at adjacent sites, Phase III data recovery was recommended and carried out at 18BC133. Phase III work called for complete removal of the remaining contents of the privy shaft, and analyses of the remains.
The remaining fill of the privy shaft was removed utilizing 10 cm levels within natural/cultural strata. To complete excavation to depths beyond 166 cm below datum, the area surrounding the privy, including the privy shaft itself, was benched back. This was done using a backhoe with a bucket attachment, which removed a 1.22 m (4 ft) wide area on all sides of the feature to the depth of the previous excavations, after which safe excavation of the remaining privy fill then could proceed. Following removal of the privy fill, a small unit also was excavated along the outside of the shaft, to sample a remnant builder’s trench. Two-liter soil samples were retained from each natural/cultural stratum or from each 60 cm level within the fill for flotation and subsequent analysis.
Two additional strata were identified beneath the three previously identified strata. In addition, the third stratum was found to extend considerably deeper than the 166 cm at which Phase II work terminated. The total depth of the excavated shaft from which all contents were removed measured 224 cm below datum.
A remnant builder’s trench was identified immediately adjacent to the laid brick walls of the privy shaft at a depth of 170 cm below datum. It was bisected and excavated manually, revealing two vestigial, nearly vertical strata immediately outside of the brick lining of the shaft. Only three artifacts were recovered from the builder’s trench” two fragments of creamware (1762-1820) and one fragment of clear lead-glazed redware. Their presence within the builder’s trench suggests that this privy probably was constructed during the 1st third of the 19th century, a date that conforms to the documentary background surrounding the initial development of the parcels in this area.
Analysis of the privy fill, on the other hand, suggested a later date for the deposits. The two uppermost strata clearly dated from the early to mid-20th centuries. The third strata, which contained the majority of the contents of the intact privy deposits, presented a generally late 19th century profile. It became clear that almost all of the organic deposits potentially associated with earlier occupations of this property, including that of the Independent Grays armory, had been removed from the shaft. Stratum 4, which contained a concentration of brick and mortar, may in fact be the sole surviving deposit from that period. If so, it almost certainly represents the final demolition stages of the militia occupation. Below this was a yellowish brown silty clay loam containing small to medium cobbles and no artifacts. It was determined to be subsoil.
Artifacts recovered during the Phase I-III excavations at 18BC133 included 431 activity items, 916 architectural artifacts, 20 clothing items, 12 furniture objects, 2,444 kitchen-related artifacts (including 35 creamware sherds, 23 pearlware sherds, 569 ironstone sherds, 18 early porcelain sherds, 26 late porcelain sherds, 45 whiteware sherds, 83 yelloware sherds, 25 miscellaneous earthenware sherds, 32 miscellaneous stoneware sherds, and un-quantified materials such as bottle and table glass and faunal remains), 21 personal items, and 167 miscellaneous objects. Ethnobotanical specimens recovered through flotation of soils from Strata 3, 4, and 5 were identified as seeds of raspberry/blackberry, clover, and leguminous species.
Although the privy feature designated as Site 18BC133 probably was constructed and in use prior to the Civil War, it disappointingly did not contain elements that could be related directly to the occupation of the adjacent property by the Independent Grays militia company. Expected items of militaria were not contained within the excavated privy fill. If indeed this feature served a function for the Independent Grays, any privy deposits relating to their use of the site apparently were cleared out, leaving only a vestige of antebellum refuse represented by a mere 26 artifacts recovered from Stratum 4, and some fragmentary undatable materials obtained from flotation of Stratum 5 (subsoil).
The primary privy deposits (Strata 2 and 3) clearly related to one or more late 19th to early 20th century domestic occupations of the site area. However, it is possible that the individuals who placed their household debris within this shaft were not the residents of the ca. 1900 rowhouses between 418 and 431 High Street, since their yard areas did not include the privy site. Until 1914, the privy site was hidden beneath a wagon shed whose foundations were encountered when the privy was first exposed.
Parts of the uppermost 70 cm of fill (Stratum 1), which contained a large proportion of the sort of architectural debris that results from demolition of one or more structures, may have been placed within the privy shaft to provide support so that the rear wall of the 20th century 40 X 60 ft wagon shed did not sag or buckle. Additional fill with accompanying artifacts was deposited when the Orleans Street Viaduct was built, and even more fill was introduced when the site surface was leveled to prepare the site for the asphalt surfaced parking lot. That the subsidence of these fill deposits continued to pose a problem, even into mid-to-late 20th century, was confirmed through the identification of an asphalt “sinkhole plug”, the result of repeated attempts to level the surface of the parking lot.
Based on the lack of significant 19th century deposits within the privy shaft, the site did not retain the research potential hoped for. The site has now been completely destroyed as a result of the construction of the Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center, which now occupies the site.
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