Site History

King’s Reach was the domestic center of a tobacco plantation in Calvert County, Maryland founded by Richard Smith Jr. and his family around 1689. Smith was a member of Maryland’s upper class at the time, with significant landholdings along the Patuxent River and close ties to the Calvert family. 1689 was full of political and economic turmoil in Maryland because the economy suffered from a tobacco depression and Protestants overthrew the Calvert proprietary that year. Though Smith was a Protestant, he supported the Catholic Calverts and suffered arrest for doing so.

By the first decade of the 18th century, both political strife and the tobacco depression had abated, allowing planters like Smith the stability they needed to accumulate wealth. In 1711, Smith constructed a new, more substantial dwelling elsewhere on the property, establishing an approximate end date for the occupation of King’s Reach.

Archaeology

King’s Reach was discovered during a 1981 survey that identified a concentration of artifacts dating to the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Archaeologists conducted surface collections and intensive excavations between 1984 and 1987. Excavations revealed a series of postholes and cellars from a 20 by 30 foot main house with an attached 10 by 20 foot shed. This was the main dwelling at King’s Reach. Also discovered were fence lines that enclosed the yard outside the dwelling and joined that yard space to a 10 by 20 foot structure that most likely represents a slave or servant quarter.

References

http://www.chesapeakearchaeology.org/SiteSummaries/KingsReachSummary.cfm

https://jefpat.maryland.gov/NEHWeb/Assets/Documents/FindingAids/18CV83-Kings Reach Finding Aid.htm

https://jefpat.maryland.gov/IntroWeb/KingsReachComplex.htm

The Kings Reach archaeological collection is owned by the Maryland Historical Trust and curated at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.