Site History

The Victualling Warehouse site (18AP14) contained remains of 18th and 19th-century warehouses operating on the Annapolis waterfront, directly opposite the historic city dockyard.  The first recorded owner of the site area was Amos Garrett, a wealthy merchant.  There was a warehouse on the lot by 1737, and a second one by 1748.  At that time the property was owned by Walter Dulany.  One warehouse was described as a “prize house,” probably because it contained a tobacco prise used for packing tobacco into shipping barrels.  In 1781, the property was seized from Daniel Dulaney, a loyalist who had fled Maryland during the Revolution.  The warehouses were then used as victualling offices to store and distribute military supplies.  In 1785, William Wilkins purchased the lot from the State of Maryland, and two years later he moved into an adjacent house.  However, a 1790 fire destroyed the house and the warehouses, and the property remained vacant until around 1810, when George and John Barber built a store there that operated until the 1830s.  A new warehouse was added after 1822, but was gone by the 1860s.  In 1852, Nicholas Kilman purchased the lot and kept a store there.  It was damaged in an 1864 fire. Kilman’s stock and possessions were removed during the fire by helpful Union soldiers, who were incensed to find Confederate flags among Kilman’s belongings.  The property was sub-divided in 1890.  The early 19th-century brick building now known as the Victualling Warehouse still stands there.

Archaeology

Archaeology began at 18AP14 in 1971, under the direction of the Maryland Historical Trust.  The goal was to establish a chronology of building construction at the site, and to determine the appearance and use of structures no longer extant.  Excavations took place below the floor of the warehouse, revealing several layers of fill associated with the construction and occupation of that early 19th-century structure. Below this was a thick burn layer produced by the 1790 fire that destroyed the original warehouses.  The excavators were unable to establish either a construction date or appearance details for these structures.  Portions of the property behind the Victualling Warehouse were investigated in 1982, 1983, and 1984.  Thirty-six 5’ X 5’ units were excavated in 3- inch arbitrary levels within natural stratigraphic layers.  Screening was employed selectively, but was always used for feature excavation.  Ten features were identified.  Most were architectural in nature, including brick and stone walls, cobble and brick pavements, postholes, a brick hearth, and a brick arch of uncertain function.  One feature was a dog burial.  The 1982-1984 work produced more than 22,000 artifacts, including ceramics (n=2,556), bottle and window glass (n=5682), oyster shell (n=1,732), animal bone (n=4,774), lead printer’s type (n=124), brick, mortar, and nails.  Personal items such as buttons, buckles, coins, marbles, and tobacco pipes were also present.  Analysis of ceramics from 18AP14 showed an extremely homogenous set of vessels, suggesting low integration into a wage-earning economy.  While this may reflect the residents’ poverty, it is a surprise given the likelihood of their connection to the market system.

Summary by Edward Chaney

References

Archaeological collections from the Victualling Warehouse site are owned by the Maryland Historical Trust and curated at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.