Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18PR669 Oak Creek K
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
The Oak Creek K Site (18PR669) is the apparent remains of a late 18th to 19th century tenant house north of Upper Marlboro in Prince George’s County. The site was mostly situated on a low knoll surrounded by lower-lying upland terrain. At the time of the site’s discovery, most of the location was a former agricultural field overgrown with tall weeds. A small patch, composed of deciduous trees, vine and thicket, was situated in the central-eastern portion of Site 18PR669. Soils at the site are primarily Collington and Wist sandy loams.
Site 18PR669 is situated just over 1,400 meters west of the historic Bowieville Mansion (MIHP# PG-74A-18), the manor house of the 19th century Bowie family plantation. The site is also just 250 meters north of the historic Beall House (MIHP# PG:74A-37). The builder of Bowieville was Mary Mackall Bowie, daughter of Maryland Governor Robert Bowie. Mary M. Bowie was born in 1776, was married twice, and was also widowed twice. She was first married to Turner Wootton from 1794 until his death in 1796. Together they had one son, William Turner Wootton. She then married her cousin, Thomas Contee Bowie, in 1800. He died thirteen years later in 1813. Mary M. Bowie and Thomas Contee Bowie had several children together.
In 1815, Governor Robert Bowie was awarded the deed for 329 acres he bought from a Thomas Buchanan in 1807. Buchanan was the trustee appointed by the Prince George’s Circuit Court in the Chancery cause over the estate of one Dr. Robert Pottinger. The land was described as, “All that dwelling plantation of the said Robert Pottinger containing 275 acres and 54 acres vacant land”. It is not known where on this plantation Dr. Pottinger resided. It may have been in the vicinity of 18PR669 or it was possibly on a different portion of the estate acquired by someone else. In 1818, Governor Bowie devised the 275 acres to his daughter Mary M. Bowie.
The same year Mary M. Bowie inherited Dr. Pottinger’s land from her father she bought the adjacent property from her son, William Turner Wootton. This conveyance consisted of 510.25 acres out of various tracts that William had inherited from the paternal side of his family. By combining the tracts she received from her father and son, Mary M. Bowie created an 853 acre plantation she called “Bowieville”. Soon after consolidating the properties, she began construction of an extravagant mansion on that portion of the land she bought from her son. Little is known about whether the various parcels that made up Bowieville were actually occupied by their various owners, with the exception of Dr. Pottinger. It is likely that tenant farmers lived on some of the parcels.
The Bowieville plantation did not remain in operation for long, for Mary M. Bowie died unexpectedly in 1826. The plantation was left to her children and husband, Thomas Contee Bowie. The 1828 tax list for Collington and Western Branch Hundreds in Prince George
S County lists the heirs of Mary M. Bowie as having possession of a total of 849 acres.
Mary M. Bowie’s son, Robert Bowie of Cedar Hill, was hard pressed to settle his mother’s accounts, forcing him to sell much of her personal property. This property included numerous slaves living on the plantation. Robert Bowie also became indebted to many neighbors and family members by trying to buy his sister’s portions of Bowieville, forcing him to mortgage the property several times. In 1836, Robert Bowie was forced to sell portions of his real estate holdings in order to raise enough funds to meet his debts. In 1846, a Chancery Court cause was brought against him by Upton and Brooke Beall. Exhibits summoned in the cause included a confirmation survey by Robert Young on a 115 acre tract of Bowieville conveyed to Robert C. Brooke by Robert Bowie in 1836. The result of the Chancery cause was a court decree requiring the sale of the remainder of the Bowieville plantation.
The 115 acre tract that Young surveyed became part of a conveyance of a 349¼ acre tract deeded from Robert C. Brooke to William Z. Beall in 1853. That same year, Otho B. Beall bequeathed his land to his brothers Zachariah B. Beall, William Z. Beall, and Washington J. Beall. In 1858, William Z. Beall bequeathed his land to his nephew, Otho B. Beall (son of his brother, Washington). Again, the historic Beall House is situated just to the south of the site. This land remained intact under Beall family ownership until 1886, when Otho B. Beall and his wife, Alice M. Beall, conveyed 78 acres to Nannie Ogle Bird, wife of Dr. Benjamin Bird. This tract was added to 87½ acres of land Nannie O. Bird acquired in two previous conveyances. In 1871, she was conveyed a 61½ acre tract by her husband. Dr. Bird had purchased the land from Mareen T. Lamar in 1867, and seven years later, Nannie would acquire an additional 27 acres out of Lamar’s estate. These tracts were contiguous, totaling approximately 166 acres.
Dr. Benjamin Bird was born in 1841, near Owensville in Anne Arundel County. Dr. Bird married Nannie Ogle Hodges in 1868. The property owned by Dr. Bird and Nannie is known to have been farmed by resident tenants living in two houses. He was a well-respected doctor practicing in Prince George’s County. In fact, he maintained an office just off the front of the house. Dr. Bird also kept riding horses close by when a birth was expected. At one point in his career, Dr. Bird served as the Secretary of the County Board of Health. He died at age 61 after battling with a bout of malaria and was buried in nearby St. Barnabus Cemetery.
Nannie O. Bird retained ownership of the property until 1915, when she conveyed it to her daughter, Marie H. Bird. In 1926, Marie H. Bird conveyed 60 acres of the property to Karoline Klager, leaving her with approximately 105½ acres. Marie H. Bird died in 1954 and in the years that followed, the Bird properties were further subdivided and sold off. The remainder of the Beall lands (those portions not conveyed to the Birds) remained largely intact and under the ownership of the Beall family until 2002.
By the late 20th century, many of the portions of the Bowieville plantation tract that had been sold off during the 19th and early 20th century were being re-assembled into a development tract. Eventually, a 925 acre parcel (including the site location) was assembled and plans were proposed to construct a combined golf course and residential development on much of the former Bowieville plantation lands. Survey of the 925 acre Oak Creek Club property began in 1999, due to the developers’ application for various required permits. Specific to Site 18PR669, Phase I work in the vicinity did not begin until 2004, when the property developers sought a wetland permit through the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Maryland Department of the Environment, which ultimately triggered Section 106 review of the country club plans and an eventual Phase II examination of the site.
Phase I work in 2004 entailed the excavation of nearly 3,500 shovel test pits placed at 15.2 m (50 ft) intervals, sixteen of which led to the discovery of 18PR669. Shovel test excavations generally featured one to two strata below a 23 cm plowzone. Most artifacts were recovered from the plowzone. The positive STPs defined an area roughly 106.7 X 106.7 m (350 X 350 ft) in extent and yielded 33 historic artifacts and one prehistoric quartz flake. The historic artifacts recovered included brick fragments, nail fragments, window glass, coal, 2 tobacco pipe fragments, olive container glass, stoneware, and whiteware. No features or structures were discovered.
Site 18PR669 was classified as an artifact scatter associated with a 19th century domestic occupation. The site was thought to mark the location of domestic dumping or an overseer or tenant farmer residence connected with the Beall family ownership of the property. Because of its antiquity and potential significance, it was recommended that Site 18PR669 undergo a Phase II archeological evaluation.
Phase II work was carried out at 18PR669 later in 2004. Phase II work entailed the excavation of over 140 STPs spaced apart at 9.1 and 4.6 m (30 and 15 ft) intervals. STPs were excavated manually, using spade shovels and trowels. The STPs were also excavated stratigraphically in order to maintain vertical control over the artifacts recovered. The soils removed were dry-screened in the field using hardware cloth. Cultural materials recovered during the screening process were retained for analysis and bagged according to provenience (i.e. by site number, STP coordinate, and stratigraphic or feature designation). The resulting material recovery was plotted on a field map in order to display the distribution of artifacts. A soil profile was also prepared on a standardized form for each STP to document soil characteristics, strata depths, and artifacts recovered per stratum. Soils were described by texture and color using standard methods and nomenclature.
Approximately half of these STPs produced positive artifact recoveries. Based on these positive STP locations, Site 18PR669 was estimated to have a dimension of 82.3 m (270 ft) north-south and 82.3 m east-west. The artifacts were fairly evenly distributed over the site area with a rather wide dispersion of materials. Only on a few occasions did the artifact recovery at any given STP location exceed 4 objects. After examining the nature and distribution of the artifact recovery, five formal test units were excavated: three in the southern half of the site and two in the northern half.
Test units were 91 cm square and were excavated manually, using flat shovels and trowels. These units were also excavated stratigraphically in order to maintain control over the vertical provenience of artifacts recovered. Selected strata in excess of 7.62 cm (3 in) were further excavated by arbitrary levels, which generally ranged in thickness from 5.08 to 10.16 cm (2 to 4 in). All excavated, non-feature soils were dry-screened in the field using hardware mesh. In the case of deeply excavated units (where safety became a concern), exploratory windows were initiated in validating the presence of subsoil. A standard report form was completed for each excavated stratum or arbitrary level within a stratum per test unit. As with shovel testing, soil characteristics, stratum depths and recovered cultural materials were documented on these forms. Included in the documentation of test unit soils was the preparation of a hand-drawn soil profile, which presented a more accurate view of the stratigraphy encountered. Only one profile was prepared for each test unit excavated and generally involved the wall with the clearest and most representative stratigraphy. Black and white photography was also used to document profiles.
Special excavation and documentation procedures were followed when possible cultural features were thought to have been identified within test units. Within reason, the overall goal was to expose the horizontal and vertical extent of these features. During the handling of potential features, a thorough documentation process was employed and included plan view hand-drawn sketches followed by photographs. In a few instances, soil samples were retained for possible examination in the laboratory. These samples were to be water-screened through 1/16 inch hardware mesh if a feature designation was made.
Over 70 shovel tests and all five test units produced positive artifact recoveries. Slightly over 200 artifacts were recovered from the site. The assemblage consisted of 62 architectural artifacts (47 pieces of brick, 1 hand-wrought nail, 13 unidentifiable nails, and 1 piece of window glass), 1 clothing item (a piece of leather), 54 kitchen-related artifacts (15 ceramic sherds and 39 pieces of container glass), 2 kaolin pipe fragments, 62 miscellaneous objects (including 29 pieces of coal, 12 unidentified objects, a glass plug, copper and other metal fragments), and 22 prehistoric artifacts. The ceramic assemblage included 1 creamware sherd, 4 whiteware sherds, 1 miscellaneous earthenware sherd, 1 Westerwald stoneware sherd, 1 Fulham sherd, and 7 miscellaneous stoneware sherds.
No cultural features were identified during the Phase II at 18PR669.
The artifacts recovered from 18PR669 reveal that the site was occupied between the 18th and 20th centuries. This historic temporal assessment was supported by the recovery of Fulham, Westerwald, whiteware, and some possible American blue and gray stoneware ceramics, kaolin pipe, and coal. The presence of domestic and architectural materials suggested that a dwelling may have been present. This dwelling was likely associated with an earlier component linked to the site. A later component, post-dating 1850, was probably connected with the Beall family’s new residence and occupation of the property. Based on the quantity and nature of the earlier artifacts, the presumed residence was thought to have been occupied for only a short duration. Presumably, the dwelling was of wood frame construction and supported a brick chimney. The lack of intact masonry features supported this view. The distribution of artifacts was unhelpful in pinpointing a potential residence location. The lack of faunal remains was thought to be a function of poor soil preservation conditions. This absence, as well as the nature of the ceramic recovery, made it nearly impossible to assess the socio-economic status of these earliest occupants. Perhaps these pre-Beall family occupants were tenant farmers who seated the land. A middle-income planter interpretation was thought to be less likely.
Given these conclusion, 18PR669 was thought to have potential research value. The research potential of the site, however, was dramatically reduced by the lack of soils with good stratigraphic integrity, minor and displaced artifact recovery, and absence of intact cultural features. Apparently, the extensive history of agriculture at this site has left its soils completely disturbed. The site is not a significant archeological resource.
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