Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18MO324 Magruder House
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
Magruder House, 18MO324, is a late 18th century two-storey brick house in Rockville, Maryland. Named “Locust Grove” by Samuel Wade Magruder, the house stands on a hilltop which commanded an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. The 12-room brick house has one interior chimney on the east wall, while the west wall has two symmetrical exterior chimneys. A two-storey frame kitchen addition extends from the west wall, which has a concrete slab hearth at the level of a raised wooden floor. There is a crawl space beneath the wooden floor of the addition. The main portion of the house has a full basement/cellar, divided into two rooms. There is architectural evidence for a stairway descending into the basement from the house, but this stairway has been removed. Entrance to the basement is now gained from an exterior entrance. A porch runs along the full length of the south wall of the house. Today, the house lies in the midst of a shopping mall, apartment and office buildings, and other modern development in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Archeological work at the site was first prompted by the desire of Chevy Chase Savings and Loan, Inc. to make adaptive re-use of the structure. The house was to be converted into a branch office, museum, and community center. The project’s architects were concerned that several architectural features which were most likely present earlier in the building’s history (see the project cover sheet) are not present today. Archeologists were called to the site to investigate the possibility that indications of these features were present below the ground surface and to review historical knowledge about Magruder House.
Samuel Wade Magruder, the builder of Locust Grove, was born ca. 1728, probably in Prince George’s County. Magruder volunteered for military duty during his twenties and served as an inspector at Rock Creek Warehouse near Georgetown from 1759 to 1770. Magruder married Lucy Beall, daughter of George Beall, another inspector at the warehouse. Through this period, Magruder presumably lived on land he owned in Georgetown. Magruder left his position at the warehouse in 1770. By 1783, he had built Locust Grove in Montgomery County, when the home and its outbuildings appeared in the county tax assessment. On his 1,123 acres, named Magruder’s Discovery, one large brick house, a kitchen, two tobacco houses, a barn, and other unspecified structures were recorded. A boarder at Locust Grove, William Wirt, recorded a description of the plantation in 1783 in which he states that the home was, “built not long before I went there”. In addition, Samuel Wade Magruder’s granddaughter, Rebecca Johnson Magruder Davidson, noted on the back of an 1876 photograph that the house contained a brick with the date “1776” inscribed on it. This brick has never been located, but it would appear that the house could have been built anytime between 1770 and 1783.
Samuel Wade Magruder died in 1792. The property was eventually divided between his three minor sons, with his son Lloyd inheriting the portion containing Locust Grove. Lloyd Magruder took over the property in 1803, at age 21. By the time of his death in 1836, at age 55, Lloyd was heavily in debt to his family and other creditors. The Montgomery County Court ordered the sale of Locust Grove to pay off these debts, and in 1838 the house was sold to John A. Carter, husband of Lloyd Magruder’s daughter Mary Catherine. The house had been advertised as “…a large and commodious Brick Dwelling House, two stories high,” with “Kitchen, Barns, Stable, Corn House, etc.”. Carter borrowed the funds to purchase the house, but was not able to pay off the notes. He abandoned the property in 1848 or 1849, apparently certain that his creditors were about to foreclose on Locust Grove. On March 7th, 1853, the house was sold at public auction to William Orndorff who lived on the farm for the next 20 years. Before the Civil War, the farm is reported to have prospered with the use of slave labor. However, the farm and house deteriorated rapidly after emancipation. Shortly after Orndorff’s death in January of 1874, a court-ordered appraisal of the property described the house as “…brick in very bad condition, east end is propped to be kept from falling out and every room wants a little repairing. Outbuildings in good condition except the stable and that cannot be considered scarcely safe for horses to be kept in. Tenant House in fair condition…”. Orndorff’s heirs sold the property at public auction in April of 1880 to Samuel F. and Otho M. Burrows.
The Burrows were apparently interested in the property for its agricultural value, and the house may or may not have been occupied from 1880 to 1890. The Burrows defaulted on their mortgage and then it was again auctioned off on, June 21, 1890, to Walter W. Burdette and Samuel Sewall Cissel. The property may have been bought upon speculation that the Tenallytown and Rockville Railroad would purchase the property at a good price, and in fact the railroad did take possession of the land in May of 1891. The railroad rebuilt the east wall of the house, with a single interior chimney (earlier photographs indicate at least one, but probably 2, exterior east wall chimneys), replaced the roof with one of more gentle slope, and raised the northwall, southwall, and second storey windows by several courses of brick. The porch, which ran the full length of the south side of the house (until 1979) was added at this time. The railroad defaulted on its mortgage on the property in 1898, yet again resulting in the public auction of Locust Grove in July of that year. The advertisement for the sale now described the house as being in good condition, with 12 rooms. The property changed hands several times over a short period, until it was purchased by Robert D. Weaver in 1901. It remained in his family until his heirs sold the house to John H. Soloman in November of 1954. After several more changes of title, the Chevy Chase Savings and Loan purchased the property in 1972.
As stated previously, the main goal of the research was to use archeology to determine the architectural history of the main house and associated structures. The property was divided into 8 different study areas; 1) the entire east wall, 2) the south wall, 3) the area between the west wall chimneys (where a builder’s trench was likely preserved), 4) the area beneath the kitchen floor, 5) the two rooms of the basement/cellar, and three separate trenches scattered in the farm yards (6, 7, & 8). A datum point was established for each individual study area. Study Areas 1-4 were segmented into square excavation units measuring 1.22 meters (4 ft) on a side and excavated by 15.24 cm (6 in) arbitrary levels. The precise locations of all architectural features were mapped and artifacts were bagged stratigraphically by unit. Study Area 5, the cellar, was divided into 1.524 meter (5 ft) units. The artifact stratum was very shallow. With two exceptions (artifacts found within features), vertical provenience was not maintained over artifacts other than by their unit designation. And finally, Study Areas 6, 7, and 8 in the farm yards consisted of three strip trenches. Soil from these units was only spot-sifted to recover samples of the artifacts being unearthed. The locations of these trenches were established to maximize the chances of intersecting architectural features, such as outbuilding foundations, ells, walkways, animal pens, and privies.
Detailed descriptions and quantities of artifacts are not provided in the full site report, however, major features are described and diagnostic ceramics are quantified. Artifact tallies in the table above are minimal estimates based on the descriptions available. In Study Area 1, excavations revealed fieldstone footings for two exterior chimneys. The east wall was, therefore, originally a mirror image of the western wall. The artifacts recovered from the east wall excavation include glass, nails, construction debris, and other artifacts of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Sixty-two ceramic sherds are reported from Study Area 1 (1 creamware, 31 pearlware, 23 whiteware, 2 ironstone, 1 redware, 1 porcelain, 1 white salt-glazed stoneware, 1 Rhenish stoneware, and 1 gray salt-glazed stoneware). All of these sherds were found in the upper 30.48 cm (12 in) of soil, along with 3 fragments of metal, one button, one bottle, one clay pipe fragment, and one prehistoric slate projectile point. With the exception of the white salt glazed sherd, none of the ceramic pieces were manufactured prior to 1780, and many were not manufactured prior to 1830.
The excavations of the south wall (Study Area 2) uncovered two porch footings of fieldstone bonded with mortar. These footings would adequately support a structure such as the porch depicted in an 1875 photograph of the front entranceway. No other porch feature was present, suggesting that this pair of footings supported the original porch of the house. Several rows of re-cycled brick were loosely placed without mortar on the ground directly beneath the front doorway and may have served as a temporary stop when the porch was remodeled. A post hole was located between the two footings and most likely served as a support for wooden steps which must have descended from the front of the porch. Two ironstone sherds, 1 sherd of white salt-glazed stoneware, 1 of unglazed stoneware, and 1 of gray salt-glazed stoneware were recovered from the surface and upper-most level. These sherds reflect the same date range as the east wall ceramics. Many 20th century artifact were also encountered, especially children’s toys. Three buttons, 3 bottles, and 2 pipe fragments were also recovered from the excavations in this area. Sterile subsoil was encountered within a short depth.
The square excavation unit located between the west wall chimneys (Study Area 3) did locate a narrow builder’s trench and excavated it to the base of the west wall foundation. The builder’s wall trench was not wide enough to have allowed for the construction of the west wall foundation from the exterior of the wall, suggesting that the cellar was excavated out first and the wall foundation built from the cellar side (evidence corroborating this was also found in Study Area 1). A post-hole was discovered along the north edge of the excavation unit, suggesting a support for the kitchen addition’s porch. Two sherds of pearlware, 1 of yelloware, and 1 of ironstone were recovered from the first level of the excavation unit. Glass and metal artifacts were also recovered, as were numerous 20th century toys. There was no apparent vertical stratification of the artifact-bearing level. The dates of the artifacts are, again, in every way compatible with those recovered during the excavation of Study Areas 1 & 2.
Prior to the excavation of Study Area 4, the kitchen, contractors removed the wooden floor leaving the joists in place to maintain structural integrity. The frame is built on a stone foundation, with a 19th century fireplace on its western wall. This fireplace has had its hearth raised to the level of the wooden floor with a concrete slab resting on a fieldstone foundation. The excavation of the kitchen revealed a fieldstone floor 7.62 to 22.86 cm (3 to 9 in) below the ground surface. There were several “gaps” in the stone floor, but excavators contend that these stones were pulled up and used for the fireplace foundation. A truncated stone wall was incorporated into the floor, revealing that the kitchen addition terminated slightly to the east of where the final form of the floor ends (i.e. the kitchen was originally smaller). Many oyster shells were found in the spaces between the stones with their concave surfaces down, possibly to facilitate proper drainage. Excavation was taken to sterile soil beneath those areas of the floor where stone was salvaged and along the eastern wall of the addition (western wall of the main house). The excavations revealed that the natural slope of the hill upon which the house was built was leveled with soil fill before the stone floor was built. No separate foundation for an east wall of the addition was found, leaving open the possibility that the kitchen addition was a free-standing structure at one time. The soil overlying the floor was heavily disturbed by rodent activity, but was rich in ceramics, with 124 sherds being recovered. Among them were 4 white salt-glazed stoneware sherds, 1 creamware sherd, 45 pearlware sherds, 18 whiteware sherds, 8 redware sherds, 2 yelloware sherds, 35 ironstone sherds, 7 porcelain sherds, and 4 salt-glazed stoneware sherds. Thirty-nine bones were also recovered (mostly cow and fowl), in addition to plate glass, various types of bottles, tin cans, cutlery, hardware, leather shoes, toys, buttons, 21 pipe fragments, and 2 projectile point artifacts. The ceramic assemblage is again completely compatible with the other study areas excavated. There is no proportionate dominance of older ceramic types which one might see if another structure predated the main house. The older ceramics were located beneath the ground surface and above the stone floor. The majority of the non-ceramic artifacts recovered from this area are of late 19th and 20th century manufacture, many of which were collected from the surface after preparation of the area for excavation.
Study Area 5 was the house cellar, which was divided into 1.524 meter square units for mapping and excavation. The artifact stratum was very shallow and with only two exceptions, the entire cellar was collected as a single unit. The exceptions were artifacts from two features; the builder’s trench and a sump pit. Three features were identified in the basement. The first of these was a 76.2 cm (30 in) deep sump pit along the east wall of the cellar. It was filled with debris, including ceramics, bone, and metal hardware, broken glass, and an iron butcher’s knife blade. The second feature consisted of a slight depression filled with distinctly colored soil running along the north wall of the cellar. Upon excavation, it was discovered that the depression descended to the lowest course of the foundation. This is surely the original builder’s trench. Blue shell-edged pearlware, not manufactured prior to 1780, was found in the trench’s fill. This certainly implies that the house was not constructed prior to this date. The third feature consisted of two rows of brick, without mortar, placed to form a landing for a set of stairs from the first floor. The stairs were no longer present, but the restoration project architects believed they were built during the 20th century. Access to the cellar is gained through an external entrance on the north side of the cellar. Ceramics encountered in the cellar included 26 pearlware sherds, 7 whiteware sherds, 1 Ironstone sherd, 1 Rockingham sherd, 6 redware sherds, 2 porcelain sherds, 2 white salt-glazed stoneware sherds, and 39 other stoneware sherds.
Study areas 6, 7, and 8, were located in the yard areas surrounding the main house. There strip trenches were utilized to locate features within the open yard areas of the property. Soil from these units was spot sifted to recover samples of the artifacts being unearthed. The locations of these trenches were established to maximize the chances of intersecting architectural features, such as outbuilding foundations, wells, walkways, animal pens, and toilets. Study Area 6 contained the largest number of artifacts, but the soil coloration exhibited irregularities which suggest the area had been filled. This tends to lessen the significance of the date range for the recovered artifacts, although this range is within that exhibited by the rest of the site. Aside from a 20th century clay drain pipe running from the house through the trench, no features were encountered. Ceramic sherds include 11 pearlware, 1 whiteware, 10 porcelain, and 7 salt-glazed stoneware. Study Area 7 contained fewer artifacts. A fieldstone walk was located along with 1 annular whiteware sherd, a Rockingham sherd, and 2 salt-glazed stoneware sherds. Study Area 8 also contained few artifacts. Another stone walkway was delineated, and an iron wheel was found along with 2 ironstone sherds, 1 redware sherd, and 3 gray salt-glazed stoneware sherds.
The archeological investigations at the Magruder House proved that the east wall of the house was built with twin exterior chimneys in the same manner as the west wall. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the northerly of these two missing chimneys had probably been rebuilt at some point before it was completely dismantled. This information was used in planning of the site which now has restored twin chimneys on the east wall. The front porch foundations were located, and they suggested that a porch similar to the one shown in a ca. 1875 photograph was probably the original form of the front entrance porch. A small builder’s trench was located between the west wall chimneys, but the trench did not appear large enough to have facilitated the construction of the builder’s foundation. However, a distinct builder’s trench was found in the cellar of the house, suggesting the cellar had been built at the time of the original structure and that the foundation was laid from within once the cellar had been excavated. Furthermore, ceramics recovered from what appears to have been undisrupted original fill could not have been manufactured prior to 1780, weakening the “1776” inscription-on-a-brick legend. It was discovered that a stone floor lay beneath the wooden floor in the kitchen addition, and that the addition had probably been a shorter structure by some 1.83 meters (6 ft) than the one which now stands. The issue of the earliest date for the addition structure was not resolved, nor was it ever determined if the kitchen addition had ever been a stand-alone building. No unknown outbuilding foundations were located in the home’s yard, and the artifacts recovered from the strip trenches closely resemble those of the other study universes in type and age.
No assessment has been made of the site’s overall vertical integrity. Most of the archeological deposits were quite shallow and could well be disturbed. However, the identification of intact features suggests that intact soils may be present within features and a valuable resource for further study. The site could probably benefit from widespread horizontal exposure (stripping) of the subsoil to locate features such a privies and outbuildings which are likely to contain artifacts useful for further interpretation.
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