Introduction
The stone Schiefferstadt House stands today within
a city park in Frederick, Maryland. Owned and operated by the Frederick
County Landmarks Foundation, the property operates as the Schifferstadt
Architectural Museum.
The house was built ca. 1756 by the Joseph Brunner
family, immigrants from Germany. Brunner named the new plantation
“Scheverstadt” after the German town from which he emigrated.
During the 19th century, the farm was occupied by tenants (including
the Yonson family) who worked for the owners, the Steiner family.
Archaeological investigations have also documented Late Archaic
and Late Woodland period occupations at the Schifferstadt site.
Archaeological Investigations
Archaeological resources at the Schifferstadt site
have been investigated on several different occasions, yielding
thousands of historic and prehistoric artifacts which contribute
to our understanding the lives of German Americans in the 18th century
and the earlier native inhabitants.
The Scheifferstadt House was listed on the National
Register of Historic Places in 1973. Site testing and planning was
conducted from 1973 through 1975 in conjunction with the purchase
of the property by the Frederick County Landmarks Foundation. In
the late 1980s, field schools from Hood College and Frederick County
Community College were conducted at Schifferstadt.
In 1995, Hettie Ballweber (ACS Consultants) conducted
excavations around the house and garden in anticipation of proposed
structure stabilization and rehabilitation efforts. Four historic
cultural features were identified in the vicinity of the house (privy,
well, smokehouse, and a feature of indeterminate function). Contained
within the privy were thousands of artifacts interpreted to have
been deposited over a short period of time, possibly during construction
of the extant 19th-century brick addition. The privy, well, and
smokehouse were likely constructed by the Brunners during their
18th-century tenure. The privy artifacts (which are attributed to
the Yonson family tenure) contained numerous cross-mendable fragments
of ceramics, bottles, and other items that were mended and associated
with specific makers.
A prehistoric base camp was identified at the site,
based on the presence of a hearth feature with a possible associated
small posthole potentially used for a meat rack. Prehistoric diagnostic
artifacts found at the site include two Bare Island points, two
Brewerton-like points, and a Madison point.
Archeobotanical Studies
Archeobotanical studies at Schifferstadt have been
limited to historic contexts directly associated with the standing
house. Two suites of analyses were conducted in 1996 by Justine
McKnight for ACS Consultants:
The first included material excavated by Orr and
Orr in the 1970s: six stratigraphic sections of two soil blocks
collected from Room 002. Room 002 was a narrow passageway which
connects the brick floor (Room 003) with the cellar (Room 001).
Processed using water flotation, these soil samples (weighing 5,795
grams) produced 0.85 grams of carbonized plant remains and 0.50
grams of non-carbonized plant materials. Samples were processed
using a SMAP-type flotation system equipped with a 1/16 inch mesh
screen. Wood, hickory nutshell, and an array of non-carbonized seeds
(including abundant fruit remains - strawberry, elder, raspberry/blackberry),
leaf fragments, and amorphous carbon were recovered. All of the
recovered seeds were non-carbonized. The archeobotanical assemblage
recovered from Room 002 is entirely consistent with the vegetative
landscape documented for the site and the region. All wood species
identified are representative of the general forest cover of the
Frederick Lowlands on which the site is located. Seed remains documented
from Room 002 are representative of useful, locally-available and
historically-documented food plants, as well as weedy plant species
which would have easily colonized the yard, gardens, and greater
agricultural landscape of the Schifferstadt farmstead during the
18th century. The botanical assemblage from Room 002 yielded only
limited data pertinent to reconstructing the diet of the house inhabitants.
Although edible plant species were in evidence within the assemblage,
known dietary staples for the time of occupation (maize, wheat,
rye, barley, and tree fruits, as well as garden produce) were lacking
from this assemblage. It is probable that the botanical remains
from Room 002 were unrelated to the direct preparation and/or disposal
of food, but rather may represent incidental inclusions only peripherally
associated with the handling of human food stuffs at Schifferstadt.
A second suite of samples was analyzed from an
early to middle 19th-century stone-lined privy (Feature 4). Eight
flotation samples were secured from eight privy strata totaling
16 liters of feature fill. Samples were processed using a SMAP-type
flotation system equipped with a 1/16 inch mesh screen. Both carbonized
(41.59 grams) and non-carbonized (18.48 grams) plant materials were
recovered. These included wood charcoal and non-carbonized wood,
amorphous charcoal, and abundant seeds (a total of 33,764 specimens).
Seeds taxa identified include many edible fruits such as mulberry,
elder, raspberry/blackberry, and sunflower, along with a variety
of farmyard weed species. All of the seeds recovered were non-carbonized.
The recovery of wood charcoal from all levels of the privy may point
to the periodic addition of alkaline wood ash to the functioning
privy as a customary maintenance practice. The consistency in plant
species represented throughout all privy levels sampled, and the
lack of seasonal diversity in the plant species recovered, suggest
that Feature 4 reflects short-term deposition. Episodic cleaning-out
of stone or brick-lined privies was standard practice, and it is
likely that the Feature 4 fill probably represents a short period
in time.
References
http://www.frederickcountylandmarksfoundation.org/fclf_schiffgen.html
Ballweber, Hettie |
1997 |
History and Archaeology at the Schifferstadt
Site (18FR134), Frederick, Md. Report prepared for the
Frederick
County Landmarks Foundation, Inc. |
|
Fiedel, Stuart J., Kerri Culhane, Sandra Smith, Charles
Goode, and Charles D. Cheek |
2000 |
I-270/US15 Multi-Modal Corridor Study, Montgomery
and Frederick Counties, Maryland. John
Milner
Associates, Inc. Report prepared for the Maryland Department of
Transportation. |
|
McKnight, Justine |
1996 |
Archeobotancial Analysis of Plant Remains from
Interior of Schifferstadt House (Site 18FR134)
Recovered
During Orr's Excavations of the 1970’s. Report Submitted
to ACS Consultants. |
|
McKnight, Justine |
1996 |
Archeobotanical Analysis of Plant Remains Recovered
from Historic Feature 4 at Schifferstadt
House
(18FR124), Frederick County, Maryland. Report submitted to
ACS Consultants. |
|
Orr, Kenneth and Ron Orr |
1975 |
A Preliminary Field Report on the Archaeological
Situation at the Schiefferstadt House, Frederick,
Md. |
|