Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18FR321 Catoctin Bathhouse,Spring,Race
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
The Catoctin Furnace Bathhouse (18FR321) is a 19th-century structure associated with a spring near the Auburn Mansion in the Catoctin Furnace Historic District. The site is located along US Route 15 in Frederick County, Maryland. The stone building was utilized as a springhouse from approximately 1815 to 1860, when it was modified to a bathhouse. Another springhouse and a raceway are also present at the site, but are not thought to be functionally related to the bathhouse.
The site was first examined by archeologists in 1977 during a Phase I survey through the Catoctin Furnace Historic District and environs prior to the dualization of US Route 15. During the investigations, the area was extensively surveyed on foot and three major features were noted and mapped. Feature 1 was the "Bathhouse" structure itself and consisted of collapsed wall debris, the original outlines of which were still discernable. Feature 2 was a nearby spring originally thought to have supplied water to the bathhouse. The spring was a clear pool confined with a cement square 1.2192 by 1.524 meters (4 by 5 ft). Sand filled the bottom of the cement box. The water came from bedrock layers going back into the slope of the ground and outlined in a rough square of hewn bedrock. A plywood board covered the cement box frame and had a small hole about 61 cm square cut in it for dipping water out. The spring box overflowed constantly and other water trickled from underneath to produce a stream which was channeled into a pipe for use in an abandoned goldfish pond to the east. Feature 3 was a raceway and portions of a retaining wall located directly behind the spring, the former providing water for the Auburn Pond to the west. It was initially thought that this feature might be related to the bathhouse. One local informant relayed that water was supplied to the bathhouse via a pipe from the raceway. Excavation would ultimately determine that this was not the case and the feature is largely unrelated to the bathhouse at 18FR321.
Archival and oral history research played an important role at the Phase I stage, prior to some initial exploratory excavations. This research revealed that in the year 1774, James, Thomas, Baker, and Roger Johnson constructed the first iron furnace at Catoctin. In 1776, they began producing pig iron under the name of James Johnson and Company. Hematite ore from the Catoctin Mountains provided the raw material for production of the iron while the Catoctin forests provided charcoal for fuel. In addition, water from the local springs and streams provided the energy to power enormous bellows blowing air into the furnace, as well as power for forge hammers, mills, and other machines. A complex system of ponds, races, ditches, dams, and aqueducts ensured that the water wheels were supplied with sufficient “drop” to maintain the power levels needed. One of the most important early products of the furnace is rumored to have been supplies (including cannon and cannonballs) for George Washington’s Army. While pig iron continued to be produced at the furnace, other important products were machine parts, foundry rolling mills, iron car/cart wheels, cast-iron stoves, and other materials. During the Civil War, iron from the furnace was used to armor the famous iron-clad ship, the Monitor. Over the course of history a number of additional furnace stacks, support structures, quarries, casting areas, and other structures were constructed in the area. Some structures were demolished and improved facilities were built. Around the year 1805, Baker Johnson (who had by then become sole owner of the furnace works) constructed a large home for his family near the furnace named "Auburn." This home still stands today. The Catoctin Furnace continued to operate until the early 20th century.
A pamphlet owned by the McPherson Family, occupants of the Auburn Mansion for the greater part of the 19th century and into the modern era, contained a photograph of a structure known as the “Bathhouse”. It showed a small 3.6576 meter (12 ft) square house covered with plaster with a gabled and shingled roof. Several local informants stated that the walls had been made of stone and covered with a whitewashed clay plaster. Apparently, portions of the stone walls were still standing in 1947 when the surface stones were removed to form the driveway of an adjacent house. According to community folklore, slave women heated water secured at the spring and placed the water in a large container within the bathhouse. Women from the old Iron Master’s house (a nearby stone cottage), used the bathhouse in the 18th century, and later the female inhabitants at “Auburn” used it for their periodic baths. It has been referred to locally as the “lady’s bathhouse”. Among the earliest rumored to use the bathhouse would have been the family of William Bright; iron master for the Johnson brothers in the 1770s. During survey work, one of the local landowners brought the excavators a coin with an English queen figure dated 1771 or 1773, which was found in a grove just to the east of the Bathhouse. One local informant believed that a pipe led from the nearby raceway supplying Auburn Pond to the bathhouse. Other informants, however, argued that a spring provided water to the bathhouse. Much of the archeological effort expended at 18FR321 would be geared towards resolving this contradiction.
Two 61 cm (2 ft) excavation units were opened up during the Phase I survey in 1977, to make preliminary explorations of Feature 1 (the bathhouse). One was located at the northwest corner of the collapsed pile of building rubble. It revealed six courses of fieldstone .9144 meters (3 ft) below the ground surface. At the base of this test unit, a dark green-black glass shard was found. This piece was similar to bottle glass from 18th century deposits in Annapolis. In stratigraphic layers directly above this, several red-glazed redware sherds, a blue-leaf painted grayware sherd, and a clear glass shard with air bubbles (a wine glass) were recovered. An additional test unit was placed in the structure’s interior, uncovering a stone floor at a depth of 45.72 cm (18 inches). It consisted of three smooth flagstones placed horizontally and fitted together. The test was not extended due to the heavy burden of wall stones, however, the excavators were confident that they had uncovered the Bathhouse floor. Other artifacts were encountered during this stage of investigations, however, they are not described in the Phase I report for 18FR321 or in the final site report. It was determined that the dualization of the highway would result in a mantle of soil and construction features covering the site to significant depths and effectively sealing it off. Thus the site warranted Phase II testing prior to the road construction work.
Phase II investigations at 18FR321 began in 1979. The plans for the site called for the careful excavation, measuring, and recording of the remains at 18FR321, the installation of instruments to observe the effect of the road on the ruins (in regard to vibration, compaction, torque-stress, chemical changes, etc.), and packing the site in sand. This would allow a significant portion of the site to be excavated and the remainder to be preserved and monitored beneath the roadway. Four trenches were excavated to subsoil at the corners of Feature 1 (the Bathhouse building), perpendicular to the walls, and were expanded to explore up to half of each wall. In addition, two trenches were dug, one in front of the doorway and one 2.4384 meters (8 ft) east of the southeast corner, to search for possible pathways leading to/from the bathhouse. Stratigraphic layers were excavated separately, and all soil was screened through 1/8 inch hardware mesh. The Phase II investigation excavated approximately 50% of this feature before it was buried for the dualization of U.S. Route 15.
A number of artifacts were encountered in the area surrounding Feature I including 805 activity-related items, 1,693 architectural artifacts, 4 clothing objects (3 buttons and a shoe heel) , 2 furniture-related items (a bathtub fixture and iron doorknob), 461 kitchen-related artifacts, 1 personal object (a pocketknife), 2 tobacco-related objects (clay pipe stem and bowl fragments), 1 arms object (a shotgun shell), and 175 miscellaneous artifacts (44 wood fragments and 131 fragments of charcoal). The activity items were a shovel handle, an iron hoe, 2 pieces of barbed wire, a paint can top, 2 pieces of a wooden object covered in sheet metal, and 798 objects related to the iron manufacturing activities of the region (163 pieces of ore, 3 pieces of flux limestone, 2 pieces of iron casting debris, 554 fragments of slag, 1 piece of iron plating, 74 iron ore fragments, 1 iron ring). The architectural remains were 7 clumps of hard-packed earth (the original bathhouse floor), 940 bricks and brick fragments, 152 pieces of plaster, 97 fragments of mortar, 113 flagstone spalls, 1 wooden post, 2 board fragments, a piece of wood with a wire nail embedded, 36 fragments of window glass, 2 pieces of lead window came, 15 pieces of tar paper, and 320 nails (1 wrought nail, 9 cut nails, 9 wire nails, 17 L-head nails, 76 T-head nails, 208 unidentified nails), 3 spikes, 3 wrought brads, and a piece of iron grate. The kitchen-related artifacts were 5 creamware sherds, 23 pearlware sherds, 2 early porcelain sherds, 3 other porcelain fragments, a mochaware sherd, 34 miscellaneous stoneware sherds, 47 whiteware sherds, 195 redware sherds, 2 other ceramic sherds, 5 table glass fragments, 137 bottle glass fragments, a kettle leg, 2 knife blades, 2 tin can fragments, and 2 pieces of shell.
The excavation work revealed that an early structure, predating the bathhouse was present at the site. This structure had a mortarless fieldstone foundation measuring 3.6576 meters (12 ft) on each side, and a brick entry step. It appeared to function as a springhouse for the refrigeration of foods. Artifacts date the construction of this springhouse to the early 19th century, and included items which are considered to be functionally related to its activities. Four hundred and fifty ceramic sherds, dating from ca. 1815-1820 to 1860, include American stoneware and earthenware vessels, and a large amount of transfer-printed and blue and green shell-edged pearlwares and whitewares. The majority of the ceramic sherds are kitchen-related wares representing dishes and crocks for food storage and refrigeration. Architectural debris, such as nails, plaster, and brick fragments, were also common. Evidence was encountered suggesting that a one-inch thick wooden trough was placed around the interior of the stone walls to channel spring water into a metal catch basin in the southeast corner. Water escaped through a barred iron grillwork and a square iron pipe on the downhill side, which continued in use after renovations converted the building into a bathhouse. The excavators conjectured that a raised brick floor was present in the structure’s unexcavated center. The presence of the ceramic sherds suggests that this early springhouse was used to refrigerate foods. An individual could stand on the dry brick floor in the center of the springhouse and place filled crockery on the wooden trough. It would be kept cool by the cold spring waters as they flowed through the trough and around the base of the crock. The dating of the ceramic sherds to the period between 1815 and 1860 would seem to preclude its use by William Bright’s family (see above). However, a depression in the subsoil layer suggests that the area was stripped to the subsoil removing humus and any archeological materials that may have been present. The Bright’s may have been aware of the spring and utilized an earlier, unknown structure, but evidence of this would have been destroyed at the time the 19th century springhouse was built. In addition, evidence of a one-time packed earth floor was found in some of the feature fill, which may represent an early period of use.
The conversion to a bathhouse is evident in ceramic and bottle glass artifacts dating from the second half of the 19th century. Sixteen complete bricks and a large number of hand-molded brick fragments were discovered in the fill that elevated the original stone floor. These bricks are also dated to the second half of the 19th century. It appeared that when the structure was renovated for use as a bathhouse, approximately 30.5 cm of soil was placed over the original floor and a "Y"-shaped brick drain was installed and used to transport water directly to the square iron catch basin. Oral history seems to suggest that a pump was installed above the catch basin for filling containers when needed. The iron pipe, grill works and other features used to channel the water when it was a springhouse continued in use, with a new flagstone floor atop them. Local informants state that a wood and/or plaster bathtub was installed in the southwest corner where the square pipe was located. The building was abandoned in 1915, when indoor plumbing was installed in the Auburn Mansion, and stones from the walls were cannibalized to construct a driveway. Slim evidence was found of pathways leading to/from the bathhouse. What little evidence was encountered was right next to the structure.
Feature 2 (the cement springhouse) was originally thought to have served as the source for the water used in the bathhouse. The Phase II testing in the vicinity of Feature 1, however, clearly demonstrated that the bathhouse had its own spring and springhouse. Excavations in the vicinity of Feature 2 further proved that this was not the case and demonstrated that Feature 2 was built in the 20th century. Two excavation activities were undertaken. The first consisted of pumping out the cement box spring and screening the 61 cm of sand at its base. The upper portions of the sand contained several dozen fragments of plastic pipe. The same pipe extended from the box through a hole toward the fish hatchery 61 meters to the east. The bottom contained an 1885 Indian Head penny and an overall button of the 20th century type. A few pellets of slag were also found. The second excavation was a 61 cm wide trench dug in a grid east-west direction through a low mound of stones. This was thought to possibly be the broken down wall of a spring house. The trench revealed only stone slabs which were identical to the local bedrock. The remains of a wooden frame to go over the cement spring were found, but no evidence of a springhouse structure were encountered. The interpretation of the findings was that the spring was constructed by removing bedrock, pouring the cement box, and diverting the spring flow to the now abandoned fish hatchery. Shortly after excavation, a local informant came forward and stated that her husband constructed the springhouse for his fish hatchery in the 1920s. Small improvements had been made over the years until the fish hatchery was abandoned just a few years before excavators noted it in 1977. She also stated that Winston Churchill had visited the fish hatchery during World War II when he and President Franklin D. Roosevelt were holding meetings at Shangri La Retreat (known today as Camp David). Churchill was reportedly grateful to Mr. Fredercik Tresselt (the informant’s husband) for supplying him with game fish (from Tresselt’s traveling aquarium exhibit) for the table (he too was a goldfish hobbyist).
Feature 3, which provides a backdrop for the site, was determined to be a raceway functionally unrelated to Site 18FR321. An oral history account related that a 15.24 cm (6 inch) water pipe had led to the bathhouse from the raceway and provided the water for the baths. As stated previously, the bathhouse appears to have had its own spring source and a second informant states that water was pumped from the spring for the baths. While sections of iron pipe were found between the raceway and bathhouse, they seem to originate in the spring and may have supplied water to an outdoor pump.
The bathhouse portion of the site, presumably retains some degree of archeological integrity if the plans proposed for sealing the site in sand and monitoring of it below the road bed were followed. The potential for investigations would, however, be contingent upon some future removal of the highway. The center of the Feature 1 floor remains unexcavated and this seems like the natural place to start should any such opportunity present itself.
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