Site History

The Wilderness tract was patented in 1755 to a planter named Nathan Hammond, who does not seem to have resided or built on the property. In 1762, title passed to the “Brothers Partnership,” also known as “George Harman & Co.” which was comprised of five German immigrants who moved to Maryland from Pennsylvania and divided the land into individual holdings. Site 18AN596 is located on the portion of the property owned by Matthew Harman. Harman’s family and descendants resided at the property from c. 1775 until the early-20th century. The 1798 tax assessment says that two acres of Matthew Harman’s holdings at the Wilderness were improved with a 28’ by 16’ wood dwelling and seven outbuildings of various sizes.

Published histories of the property do not state when Matthew Harman died, but his land passed to his son John Harman, who lived there until his death in 1816. John Harman’s 1820 probate inventory lists his kitchen, meat house, weaving house, sheep house, school house, and fowl house as being in good repair, while the dwelling house, cow stable, log stable, log barn, garden, and fencing were in want of repair, and the orchard was “in decay.” Much of his portable estate was auctioned off, and among those who attended the auction to purchase some of his personal goods was one of his former slaves, Nan, who Harman had manumitted in 1815 along with her daughter.

The tract seems to have passed to John M. Harmon, who was born in 1816 at the Wilderness. He might have grown up at the site, but chose not to live there in adulthood and deeded the plantation to his sisters. From the 1840s to the 1880s, the property was probably occupied by Julia Anne Harman Disney and her family. Her grandson, Charles Disney, inherited the tract upon her death in 1899, but the property went into trusteeship because he was declared a lunatic. In 1911, the tract was divided and sold to Otto and Catherine Hahn. The land twice changed hands again in the 1940s.

Archaeology

Phase II excavations were undertaken at the Wilderness site in the late 1980s because it was threatened by the construction of Maryland Route 100. Six partially standing structures were identified and documented and four of these were found to date to the 18th century occupation of the plantation. Two of the outbuildings included preserved log construction that showed the Pennsylvania German influence on the site’s architecture.

A total of 196 shovel tests and 21 test units were placed around the site, resulting in a rich assemblage of domestic and architectural artifacts. Many of the artifacts date to the 20th century, and therefore post-date the
occupation of the Harman family and descendants, but the archaeologists reporting on the site felt that there were enough intact 18th-early 20th century structures and deposits to make the site an important one for studying a long-term occupation by a single family of German descent.

References

The Wilderness archaeological collection is owned by the Maryland Historical Trust and curated at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.