Chapel Point Site (18CH79)

The Chapel Point Site, 18CH79, is a multi-component prehistoric and historic-era site in southern Charles County, Maryland. The site appears to have been occupied at various times during the Early and Late Archaic, all stages of the Woodland period, and from the 17th-20th centuries. Archaic deposits appear to be incidental, with the primary prehistoric deposits being associated with a Woodland shell midden. Historic components include a 17th through 19th century Catholic churchyard and cemetery, as well as use as an amusement park & fair grounds during the 20th century. The burials within the cemetery were exhumed in 1867 and re-located to a new cemetery at nearby St. Ignatius Church, however, not all burials were accounted for in 1867.

The site has been known to local collectors since at least the late 19th century, when a collection including items from the site was sent to the Smithsonian Institution. The shell middens were included on a map of Port Tobacco River sites put together by an avocational archaeologist in 1935. No formal excavations of the site were documented prior to the late 1970s when salvage work was conducted by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. This appears to have been limited to the collection of eroded out historic burial remains on the small beach below the site.

The first documented archaeological work at the site was conducted in 1987. Again, at that time burials were observed eroding out of the bluff overlooking the river. Archaeologists with the Maryland Historical Trust, Maryland Geological Survey, and volunteers from the Archaeological Society of Maryland worked to salvage human remains. Excavations recovered two historic burials partially intact, and three burial shafts from which the human remains had already been exhumed in 1867. All five burial shafts were excavated through an intact Woodland oyster shell midden. Artifacts associated with the recovered burials indicate a date of interment ca. 1820-1830.

Additional excavations were conducted in 1988 and 1989 as part of an Archeological Society of Maryland Annual Field Session. This excavation work, unlike the excavations in 1987, focused primarily on the prehistoric shell midden deposits at 18CH79. Unfortunately, no site report has ever been written which describes these excavations in full. A brief description of the excavations is provided in a report relating to radiocarbon dating of a Pope’s Creek vessel recovered from the site, and there is some additional information available in MHT site files. These reports state that the excavations were focused primarily on areas subject to ongoing erosion, though some other portions of the site were also examined.

Site 18CH79 appears to have good integrity, containing both intact features and diagnostic artifacts. Provided provisions can be made for the avoidance of historic human remains which may be extant at the site, significant research questions could be answered through additional work at the site. In particular, future research should focus on the Early Woodland deposits and their relationship with later use of the midden, especially any notable differences in the timing of use of the site as evidenced through faunal analysis.

(Edited from the Maryland Historical Trust Synthesis Project)