Great Neck Road (18QU240)
Site History
The Great Neck Road site (18QU240) is a late 18th to 19th-century tenant house site near Stevensville on Kent Island in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland. Indication of a structure in this location is found on Coastal Survey Maps from 1846, 1877, 1895, and 1907 (United States Coast and Geodetic Survey) and on a USGS Quad from 1904 (United States Geological Survey). A structure appears at this location on both the Strong (1860) and the Lake, Griffing, and Stevenson (1877) maps. Historic records indicated that the property belonged to the Winchester family during last quarter of the eighteenth century and to the Earickson and Thompson families during most of the nineteenth century.
Archaeological Investigations
This site was identified in 1990 via a Phase Ib archaeological survey in advance of proposed improvements to MD 8. The site consisted of a concentration of historic artifacts located in a fallow field. A total of 29 shovel test units were excavated at 20m intervals with 5m radials. Historic period artifacts were recovered from 16 of these shovel tests. A pedestrian reconnaissance revealed a dense surface scatter of brick fragments, oyster shell, ceramics, and glass.
Artifacts recovered from the excavation or shovel test units and surface collection in the Great Neck Road area were diverse and included ceramics dating from c. 1690 to the end of the 19th century. Fragments of British brown stoneware, domestic gray stoneware, whiteware decorated with transfer-printing, blue edging, and banding, red ware, pearl ware, and glass bottle fragments were recovered in addition to the ubiquitous brick and oyster shell fragments, which were noted.
Phase II archaeological excavations were conducted at the site at the request of the Maryland State Highway Administration in 1993 in advance of road widening. The purpose of the excavations was to locate the site boundaries and evaluate the site for eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places. Sixty-eight shovel test pits were excavated at ten-meter intervals as well as eight 1m × 1m test units. Based on the artifact densities within the test units, four trenches were excavated to search for any historic features. The brick foundation floor of a late 18th- to early 19th-century structure was identified. Numerous historic artifacts were recovered at the site including creamware, pearlware and whiteware ceramics, glass, brick, kaolin pipe fragments and gunflints.
References
1994 Phase II Archaeological and Historical Investigations at the Great Neck Road Site (18QU240), Queen Anne's County, Maryland. (WAPORA, Inc. for State Highway Administration) SHA Archaeological Report No. 82 MHT# QU 28.
1990 Phase Ib Archeological Survey, Improvements to Maryland Route 8 from Old Matapeake Ferry Road to South of U.S. 50/301, Queen Anne's County, Maryland. (John Milner Associates, Inc. for State Highway Administration) SHA Archeological Report No. 19 MHT# QU 19.
