Town Neck (18AN944)
Site History
The Town Neck, or Ralph Williams, site (18AN944) is a mid-17th-century plantation located on a low terrace of Carr Creek, a tributary of the Severn River within the U.S. Naval Academy grounds on Greenbury Point, Anne Arundel County. At the time of the site’s discovery, it was situated just to the west of a Naval Radio Transmitter Facility (radio tower and antenna hut). The site is situated immediately east of a relict streamhead that once drained into Carr Creek, north of a silted-over inlet formerly known as Utie’s Cove. In Colonial times, the Severn River, as well as Carr Creek and other interior tributary stream, would have enjoyed the benefits of a more sheltered harbor and a more easily navigable deep water-channel than is present in the locale today.
The first European settlement of the Town Neck area occurred in the mid-17th century. There was significant political tension at the time due to the ascendency of Cromwell’s Protestant roundheads. In August of 1648, Lord Baltimore removed Thomas Greene, a Catholic, as Governor of Maryland, and appointed in his place William Stone, a Protestant. One of Stone’s first acts as governor was to invite a group of Virginia Puritans led by a Richard Bennett to settle along the Chesapeake north of the settlement at St. Mary's.
Bennett's group was amenable to this invitation because they had been persecuted on religious grounds in Virginia. Richard Bennett, along with seven other landholders, received 250 acres along the eastern bank of the Severn, on the peninsula that terminates at Greenbury Point. The terms of Bennett's grant assigned 15 acres, probably as headrights, to each of the 7 others in Bennett's party, with the remainder of the grant going to Bennett himself. The acreage granted to Bennett took up much of this peninsula, extending northward to the mouth of Mill Creek. Bennett and his group christened this grant Town Neck.
At mid-century, Town Neck offered level, rich soils that were ideal for growing tobacco. Bennett and his original group of landholders may have actually taken possession of the land as early as 1649. Following a pattern observable elsewhere in Maryland and in Virginia, planters gradually established themselves in relatively isolated farmsteads dispersed along major streams and tributaries. If Bennett and his 7 associates actually did settle and build on the patent in 1649, there could have been as many as 8 house sites on and around the peninsula prior to 1658. The historic record is silent on this point though.
The first recorded transaction, on February 4, 1658, names each of Bennet's group of 8 settlers at Town Neck and records their joint sale of Town Neck to a Nathaniel Utie, who at that time was serving as secretary to Governor Stone. In a second entry made on October 20th of that year, the title history of the property to date is recounted in greater detail. Sometime after the original grant to Bennett and his group, the entire 250 acre parcel became the sole property of Bennett. In 1658, Bennett (recognized in this deed as the sole proprietor) sold Town Neck to Nathaniel Utie, a kinsmen of Bennett's wife.
In 1661, Utie sold Town Neck to William Penny, who almost immediately sold it to Ralph Williams, a Bristol merchant who was also serving as a magistrate in Anne Arundel County. Williams added to his holdings by purchasing an additional 145 acres "at the head of Town Neck" in 1662. Williams held the property at Town Neck until his death in 1673. In 1685, Williams' heirs sold the property to Edward Perrin, who in turn sold it to Nicholas Greenberry (who renamed the area Greenberry's Point). From that time until its sale to the United States of America in 1909, the parcel that contains 18AN944 appears to have been used as a farmstead.
Ralph William's probate inventory (filed June 17th, 1676) contains the only specific mention of land use at Town Neck during the 17th century. Mr. Williams’ will contains no information about where he was living at the time of his death. It, and the inventory of his estate suggest that he was, by colonial standards, a wealthy man. Later deeds and mortgages for the property mention improvements from time to time, but only in a general and formulaic way. No detailed descriptions of the property are presented in any of these later documents beyond the conventional traverse points and distances that make up the property’s metes and bounds. No maps or survey plats have survived that depict the former Town Neck property in any kind of useful detail.
Archaeology
The Town Neck site was discovered in 1993 during construction of a sediment trap at the Naval Radio Transmitter Facility on Greenbury Point. Salvage recordation of the site was performed by Anne Arundel County archaeologists in 1993. Construction of the sediment trap removed one corner of a buried cellar hole (referred to as Feature 1) from what appeared to be a 17th century earthfast structure, and also exposed a borrow pit (Feature 2) filled with 17th century materials. The cellar hole was visible in the eastern wall of the sediment trap. The borrow pit was located at the lip of the more gently sloping western wall of the trap.
Compliance-driven fieldwork commenced in December 1993 and was completed in March of 1994, after some salvage work was done by volunteers with the Anne Arundel Archeological Society (AAAS) and Navy personnel under the supervision of the County Archaeologist. Feature 2 was partially excavated by AAAS during November of 1993. Society volunteers removed and screened the plowzone soils and drew the feature in plan view as it appeared under the base of the plowzone. The society then excavated the feature at its eastern and western extremes, leaving a balk at the feature's center. The artifacts recovered from Feature 2 appeared to date from the mid to late 17th century. Three strata were recognizable within the feature. The deepest stratum contained a dense concentration of wrought nails, ash, and architectural rubble. The two overlying strata contained more bottle glass and ceramic sherds. It was posited that the lower level was associated with the destruction of a 17th century building (possibly the one associated with the Feature 1 cellar hole) and burial of the architectural debris, while the two upper levels document continued use of this "borrow pit" as a trash dump.
Phase II investigations by KCI Technologies, Inc. and Anne Arundel County archaeologists defined the site boundaries. Field testing included 38 shovel test pits 57 cm in diameter and two 1x1 meter test units, and several cultural features were excavated.
The most prominent of the 17th century features beneath the plowzone is Feature 1. The feature was interpreted as the remains of a timber-lined cellar or halfcellar that is typical of the earthfast structures of the period. The timbers at the cellar's base burned in place during the 17th century. This event will likely have preserved elements of architectural detail that would ordinarily not be visible in the archeological record. Three postmolds, each positioned fortuitously along the northern edge of the sediment trap, flank Feature 1. The three postmolds may partially define the ground plan and directional orientation of the dwelling.
The site also contains Feature 2, a 17th-century trash pit filled with artifacts that appear to be contemporaneous with the cellar fill. Feature 2 was located on the southwestern lip of the sediment trap and may be associated with a second occupation of the site soon after the burning and collapse of the structure over Feature 1.
During the Phase II study, a deep deposit of 17th-century materials (located approximately 61 meters southeast of the cellar hole) was investigated. This deposit was located and sampled in the process of defining site boundaries and appears to lie in a shallow gully or depression. This depression, visible on mid-19th century maps of Greenbury Point, has since been filled in. Most of the artifacts recovered at this location appear to have been washed into the depression. Some materials at the bottom of the gully, however, may have been intentionally deposited there.
The site also yielded some materials of Native American manufacture, and historic-era materials dating to the 18th and 19th centuries. The Phase II STPs and excavation units yielded a small grit-tempered Late Woodland potsherd and several chert and jasper flakes. Their context and associations, along with information on early colonial trade in the Annapolis area, imply the likelihood of contact between British colonists and Native groups during the site’s 17th-century occupation. All of these materials have thus far been directly associated with 17th-century European materials or have been bracketed by strata containing 17th-century artifacts. Collections made from the back dirt of the sediment trap have yielded other stone artifacts that are likely of Native American manufacture.
References
1994 Phase II Archaeological Evaluation: The Town Neck Site (18AN944) Athletic Facilities Project, Naval KCI Technologies.
n.d. Unearthing Our Colonial Past: Selected Articles on the Archaeology of Early Anne Arundel County, Maryland (Lost Towns Project). Articles from Maryland Archaeology reprinted in bound form. MHT# AN 515.
