Site History

In 1663, Maryland’s colonial proprietary granted a 1,000 acre tract known as Mattapany to Henry Sewall in exchange for 15,000 pounds of tobacco. Henry and his family founded a plantation there that would come to be known as Mattapany-Sewall (18ST390). Henry’s occupation of the property was short-lived, however. He died in 1665, leaving his estate to his widow Jane Lowe Sewall and their children.

In 1666, Jane Sewall married Charles Calvert, who then moved in with her at Mattapany and erected a new dwelling. Charles Calvert was the governor of the colony, so his home became a center of political activity in Maryland. Ships stopped in port at Mattapany, Council meetings were held there, and between 1671 and 1690, Mattapany was home to the primary magazine of the colony. To accommodate all of these public functions, the plantation had to be both sizable and defensible.

In 1676, Charles Calvert’s father died and he became the Third Lord Baltimore, Proprietor of Maryland, and the only Lord Baltimore to have ever actually resided in the colony. He and his wife returned to England in 1684, after which Mattapany-Sewall was occupied by a succession of tenants until a descendant of Henry Sewall, Nicholas Lewis Sewall, inherited the plantation and erected a new (ca. 1740) home about 300 yards away, leaving the dwelling erected by Calvert to fall into ruin.

Archaeology

Archaeological excavations in the 1980s and 1990s concentrated on two areas of the Mattapany-Sewall site: the dwelling erected during Charles Calvert’s occupation of the property, and the magazine. Excavations at the dwelling identified a structure with a 25’ by 50’ brick foundation and a tiled cellar floor. Features around the house included a possible kitchen cellar, scattered postholes, and a hastily-erected defensive palisade that may date to 1689, when Protestants overthrew the Catholic Calvert family and raided the Mattapany magazine. Based on diagnostic artifacts and historical documents, this portion of the site dates to ca. 1666-1740.

Excavations of the magazine yielded artifacts such as large quantities of lead shot, gunflints, and a gun barrel. These finds coincide with historical accounts of the types of objects stored there. A 1694 inventory of the munitions seized from Mattapany listed four barrels of gunpowder, 194 muskets, 118 carbines, 32 other assorted guns, 3,000 pounds of shot, and another 3,000 pounds of shot, “found Afterwards plaistered up in the Wall.” This account indicates that the structure was dismantled shortly after the Protestant takeover. Diagnostic artifacts help confirm the historical records, dating the magazine to ca. 1660-1700.

References

The Mattapany archaeological collection is owned by the Naval District Washington, Naval Air Station Patuxent River and curated at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.