Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18CV426 Sukeek's Cabin
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
The Sukeek’s Cabin Site (18CV426) is a late 19th through early 20th-century African American domestic occupation located on a ridge above Mackall Cove in Calvert County, Maryland. The site is located on the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (JPPM) property near St. Leonard. The site consists of a sandstone house foundation (constructed ca. 1870 and abandoned before 1920), and approximately half an acre around the foundation encompassing yards, trail heads, and work areas. Soils at the site are primarily Downer loamy sands and Dodon sandy loams.
According to eye-witness descriptions, the house was a two-story structure with one room on each floor, approximately 1.6 meters square (17 feet square). It had clapboard siding, a single entrance on the south facade, few windows, and a metal roof. The interior walls were covered in plaster over wood lath.
The Sukeek’s Cabin Site was first noticed during a rapid survey of park property in 1983. However, no systematic investigation of the site was conducted at that time. In 1996, oral historical research began to suggest a connection between the structure and the descendants of a woman known only as “Sukeek”, who was enslaved on the Peterson Plantation (the plantation that is now JPPM) during the 19th century. Oral history and archival work suggests that after emancipation, many of the former slaves of the Peterson family continued to live and work on the property as tenant farmers. George W. Peterson appears to have been the landowner of the property at the close of the Civil War, and at the time of the 1850 slave schedule, he owned 16 slaves including a 40 year-old woman (likely Sukeek). An 18 year-old woman is believed to be her daughter, Rebecca Coats, while a 20 year-old man is likely Rebecca’s husband Jesse Coats. The 1860 slave schedule mentions the presence of three slave houses.
Becky Coats was the mother of Jane Dawkins Johnson. Jane Dawkins Johnson was the grandmother of Mrs. Octavia Gross Brown, who, along with her husband Daniel, worked on the property in the 1940s. Mrs. Brown, her husband, and her two sisters, were able to provide some family history information and suggested that the property at 18CV426 was ‘home’ to various members of the family over time and that it had originally been a slave cabin, inhabited by Sukeek. While the oral history corroborates archival evidence of Browns, Grosses, Dawkins, Johnsons, and ultimately Coats living in the area and working on the property, there is no documentary evidence related to Sukeek, other than the 1850 slave schedule reference to a female slave of roughly the right age. All that the Gross sisters knew of Sukeek, was that she was a slave and arrived in the area between 1800 and 1825. The Gross sisters did state that their mother and grandmother (Eliza Dawkins Gross and Jane Dawkins Johnson) lived in the house at 18CV426. A 1902 USGS map of the property depicts three dwellings, aside from the Peterson farmhouse. It is possible (although not proven) that the three structures may correspond to the three slave dwellings described in the 1860 slave schedule. The possibility would certainly corroborate the oral history that the dwelling dates back to the 19th century enslaved inhabitants of the Peterson plantation.
Informants also provided some details regarding their recollections of the structure and activities that took place nearby. A Mr. Tom Fowler, lived on the farm property from 1930 to 1940. He mentioned that, according to his father, a woman named Jane Johnson (i.e. Jane Dawkins Johnson) had lived on the hill where 18CV426 is located. Mr. Fowler, his father, and his brother Willis frequently worked near the property, slaughtering and processing hogs in an area just to the west of the foundation. Tom further stated that, although the structure was abandoned by the 1930s, it was still standing and was a two-story, 1 room over 1 room structure with clapboard siding and a plastered interior. His recollection was that the house had a wood floor, and a single door on the south side with wooden steps leading to the entrance. Mr. Fowler’s father described Jane Dawkins Johnson as, the “workingest woman he ever knew.”
In 1999, the site became the focus of intense archeological interest. Field operations began with clearing the site of vegetation and conducting a controlled surface collection. Twelve 3 meter squares were laid out and collected. Intensive investigation followed in May of 2000 as part of the JPPM Public Archaeology Program. Eight-week field sessions were conducted at the site in both 2000 and 2001.
Investigations entailed surface collection, shovel-testing, and the excavation of test units. A total of 52 1.5 meter test squares were surface collected to determine the approximate extent of the site. This was supplemented with 12 shovel test pits (STPs), measuring approximately 35 centimeters in diameter, excavated along the slopes south and west of the foundation ruins. The STPs were placed at 3 meter intervals and all soils were screened through hardware mesh.
In addition to the surface collection and STPs, during both field seasons test units were placed northwest, west, and south of the foundation, as well as within the foundation. A total of ten 1.5 meter test units were excavated. The site had not been disturbed by plowing, so the test units were all excavated by hand in 5 centimeter levels within natural layers. All soils were screened through hardware mesh, and all artifacts were retained. A 25-centimeter square from each stratum was excavated and waterscreened through fine mesh, to detect classes of cultural material that passed through the regular hardware cloth. All units within the cabin foundation or abutting it were divided into four quadrants to provide for enhanced control of provenience. One liter soil samples were retained from each excavated stratum, but these were eventually discarded due to lack of funds and personnel to adequately process them.
Three units were excavated within the foundation. A trench feature and a foundation stone that protruded into it, presumably to support a floor joist, were found in the northeast corner of the dwelling, and suggested that the dwelling was log, at least on the first story. Other units revealed that a barbed-wire and wire-mesh fence at the edge of the slope south of the house had defined the perimeter of the yard. A few artifacts were clustered along the fenceline, but the yard itself contained little cultural material. This, and the presence of complex erosional features in the yard, suggested that the area had been kept clean and vegetation-free through sweeping (a common practice among African Americans in the region). Two additional units were excavated on the relatively steep slope south of the fenceline, in an area where residents apparently dumped their trash. Visible artifacts were scattered over an area of the hillside that was at least 25 meters wide. Most of the artifacts from the site were recovered in these units. Three test units were excavated west of the dwelling. All bore evidence of slaughtered hog processing activities described by Mr. Fowler in interviews with project personnel. This included soil disturbed by the excavation of pits to hold steel boiling drums, and the remains of fires in which metal objects were heated to make the drum water boil. Artifacts recovered directly west of the foundation suggested that objects from the house were collected and burned, perhaps during demolition of the building.
A total of 42,771 artifacts were reportedly recovered at the Sukeek’s Cabin Site. The domestic artifacts, with the exception of a plastic thimble found in the trash midden, were comfortably dated between 1873 and 1920. Some, notably pipe fragments, were possibly earlier. Artifact tallies are available from the 1.5 X 1.5 m test unit excavations, but the remaining artifacts are not described in the draft site report and could only be identified as “unidentified” and are counted under the “miscellaneous” category in the table above. The artifact assemblage from Sukeek’s Cabin consisted of 247 activity items, 28,172 architectural artifacts, 82 clothing items, 8 furniture objects, 7,568 kitchen-related objects, 16 personal items, 32 tobacco-related objects, 2 arms items, 6,640 miscellaneous historic or modern artifacts, and 4 prehistoric items. The activity items were 10 porcelain doll parts, a porcelain toy cup fragment, 16 iron alloy can fragments, 14 lamp glass fragments, 14 harmonica parts, a pocket light lid, an iron bolt, and iron rivet, 5 slate pencil fragments, 176 wire fencing fragments, and 8 pieces of barbed wire. Architectural items included 662 brick fragments, 5 pieces of cement/concrete, 704 pieces of mortar, 381 mortar/plaster fragments, 20,115 pieces of plaster, a piece of daub, 124 window glass fragments, 19 pieces of slate, 105 pieces of milled wood, 4,672 fragments of architectural stone, a tile fragment, 1,369 nails (2 wrought, 1,122 cut, 14 wire, and 131 unidentified), 3 cut spikes, 10 construction staples, and a brass hinge. The clothing items were 50 buttons (30 glass, 13 metal, 5 shell, 2 unidentified), a metal snap, 9 leather fragments, 10 shoe eyelets, a copper alloy eyelet, 4 hooks and eyes, 3 buckles, a garter, a safety pin clasp, a handle from an iron pair of scissors, and a plastic thimble. Furniture items were a brass tack, 2 castor parts, and 5 furniture hardware parts. Kitchen-related artifacts include 332 ceramic sherds (166 refined earthenware, 1 pearlware, 29 porcelain, 12 ironstone, 81 whiteware, 1 Rockingham, 21 miscellaneous stoneware, and 21 alphabet plate sherds), 1,331 glass fragments (66 table glass, 10 glass lid liners, and 1,255 bottle glass fragments), 13 zinc jar lid pieces, 1 utensil handle, and 5,891faunal remains (147 unidentified animal bones, 67 burned bones, 8 fish bones, 4,716 oyster shell fragments, 840 clam shell fragments, 112 shell fragments, and 1 chicken beak). The 16 personal items were a copper alloy locket, an 1887 “Indian-head” penny, an 1888 penny, an 1895 penny, an 1898 “Indian-head” penny, a “Liberty-head” dime, a seed bead, 3 glass beads, a metal filigree pendant, 3 porcelain figurine fragments, a BSA pin, and a shark’s tooth. Tobacco-related artifacts were 18 stoneware pipe fragments, 5 reed-stemmed hollowware pipes, 8 white clay pipe fragments, and a red clay pipe bowl fragment. The arms objects were 2 shotgun shells. The miscellaneous historic or modern items include 378 unidentified pieces of glass, 6 unidentified pieces of brass, 125 unidentified pieces of iron, 5 lead fragments, 17 unidentified pieces of metal, a piece of worked bone, a piece of plastic, 277 fragments of charcoal, and 5,830 unidentified items. The prehistoric assemblage consists of 1 flake, 2 worked quartz chunks, and smoothed sandstone fragment.
Based on the evidence collected from Sukeek’s Cabin Site, the dwelling was constructed in the 1870’s. The first story, at least, was constructed of logs, as indicated by the findings in test unit 6269. The second story of the house may have been original or added at a later time. The findings cannot rule out the possibility of a later expansion of a half-story to a full story. The interior plaster finish over wood lath was probably installed at the time of construction; if it were substantially later, we would expect to recover wire lath nails and we found none. The recovery of milled boards with cut nails protruding from both sides suggest interior partitions dividing the space inside the house. The cut nails indicate that the partitions were original, as well.
The house was heated by a cast iron stove; a second cast iron stove used for cooking may have stood next to the dwelling in the yard, possibly under a shelter. Investigations to date have found no evidence of a fireplace hearth that predated the stoves, so we assume that they were installed at the time of construction. The patterning of artifact deposition at Sukeek’s Cabin Site suggest that the house was intentionally dismantled some time after 1951, the date of the aerial photograph that shows a roof on the site. The domestic artifacts, with the exception of the plastic thimble found in 5069, are comfortably dated between 1873 and 1920. Some of the artifacts, notably pipe fragments, are possibly earlier. More testing within the structure, especially along the west wall of the dwelling, in the vicinity of the stove (s), may yield more information about the succession and timing of datable changes to the structure than were uncovered in the present investigation. The material recovered to date from within the structure was, however, disappointingly mixed with demolition debris.
Demolition debris actually assisted in teasing apart deposits in the yard area. A comparison of the patterning of refined earthenware and nails, for example, shows the strong difference in their occurrence in the yard—a difference that is consistent with the relative scarcity of domestic artifacts in the level area adjacent to the house. The nails were probably deposited during the demolition of the house long after it was abandoned. The absence of domestic artifacts in the yard may be explained by the yard having been routinely swept free of trash and debris. As noted above in the section discussing the likelihood of a swept yard, artifacts might have been trapped by vegetation along the fence at the south edge of the yard. The distribution of refined earthenware shows an accumulation coincident with the fence-line.
If the house was, in fact, constructed after the end of the Civil War, it represents a new level of autonomy for the free descendants of Sukeek. The property was still owned by the former slave-owner, and the proximity to his house, as well as oral historical accounts, attest to continuity of the relationships begun during slavery. Sukeek and her descendants continued to supply labor for the Petersons. Sukeek’s family, however, was clearly involved in a market beyond the Peterson farm, with aspirations that would carry the descendants far beyond the neighborhood.
Two cast iron stoves, both with patent dates in the 1870s were found at the site—one apparently for heating, and one for cooking. The research on the stoves has just begun but the fact that they were found on the site is an important window into the lives of the people on the hill. Domestic technology changed radically in the 19th century; cast iron cook stoves were adopted in mid-century by upper and middle class households, and were presumably adopted later in rural areas and among laborers. At Indian Rest, an African American log house of this period in Calvert County, the stove appears as an addition to a cooking hearth. At Sukeek’s, it seems that the stove was installed in the house when it was built, as there is virtually no suggestion of a chimney or a cooking hearth. What had initially been taken for a chimney fall, upon further investigation, seemed to be piled foundation stones. The absence of a cooking hearth suggests that Sukeek’s descendants may have acquired modern kitchen appliances with the house. This, in turn, suggests greater involvement in the regional economy and a greater participation in new technologies than we expected.
What is not clear is who put the stoves in the house. If the property was, as we assume, still owned by the Petersons, did the Petersons pay to have the house constructed and furnished? Does the presence of the stoves say something more about the relationship of Peterson to the descendants of Sukeek, than it does about the ability of the descendants to purchase market goods? These questions might be answered by the discovery of documents relating to the sale of items for the house.
The domestic and personal artifacts made up the smaller portion of the assemblage from the site, but they were suggestive. A single artifact offers less ambiguous insight into Sukeek’s descendants’ family life and values: the sherds of a child’s alphabet plate in the trash deposit south of the front yard. The registry mark indicates it was made on September 29, 1882. Regardless of how the plate was acquired, there are layers of messages in this single artifact: the manufacture of mass market goods specifically for children was a relatively new development, part of the Victorian project to reinvent, or to invent, childhood as a special time meriting its own material culture. The letters around the margin suggest learning and literacy (as do the numerous slate pencil and slate fragments recovered on the site). This was a time in Calvert County when African American communities built and staffed their own schools. Calvert County had not yet begun to bear the cost of educating African American children. There was a school for African Americans at a church in Island Creek (many of Sukeek’s descendants are buried in the cemetery there), a five mile walk from the site. We don’t know if the children who lived in the house attended that school, but the plate and the pencils and slate, tell a story about Sukeek’s family educating their children.
There is ample evidence in Calvert County to show that African Americans were involved in educating themselves and their children. First, virtually every African American community in the county had a school for its young people. The communities, often through churches, supported the schools. Education was also valued at home. Among the books found cached in Island Creek, near the hearth in the nineteenth-twentieth century home of Albert Gantt, freed through service in the US Colored Troops in the Civil War, was a book entitled, The Negro Self-Educator. Letters ensuring Gantt’s niece’s entry into high school outside Calvert County in the late ‘teens (before Calvert County had high schools for anyone), were also found. Octavia Gross Brown (great-great granddaughter of Sukeek) emphasized the importance her own mother placed on education and reading at home. The evidence compiled in the Sukeek’s Cabin Site project allows us to begin to construct a picture of Sukeek’s family in the late 19th century that is a new one among public histories in Calvert County.
The study of the Sukeek’s Cabin Site included oral history, archeology, and documentary research. Oral historical information was gathered from several sources, including descendants of Sukeek and people who worked on the surrounding farm in the 1930s. The descendant family traces their lineage to a woman known only as Sukeek, who was enslaved on the plantation that is now JPPM. ‘Sukeek’s Cabin’ may be a misnomer, as it is not confirmed that Sukeek herself lived there, though the elder descendants believe she did. Documentary and oral historical evidence suggests that Jane Dawkins Johnson (Sukeek’s granddaughter) and her kin occupied the site, probably up to a few years before Johnson’s death in 1918. Sukeek could well have lived there before her granddaughter.
The Sukeek’s Cabin Site (18CV426) represents Sukeek’s descendants’ first home as free people. After Emancipation, family members continued to work on the farm of their former owners, the Petersons. Analysis of the site helps to document one of the important social transformations in American history, the change from enslaved to free. The site is certainly significant, but due to the extent of excavations already carried out, its research potential has likely been exhausted.
|
