Trueman's Appeal(18CV175)

The Trueman’s Appeal site (18CV175) is the remains of a 19th-century farmstead north of Lusby in Calvert County. A late 19th- or early 20th-century house was located some 200 meters distant.

Archival research revealed that Trueman’s Appeal was the residence of the Blunt family in the last half of the 19th century. The house ceased to exist by 1897. It is possible that the site was the residence of the Pardoe family before it came into the ownership of the Blunts. This is conjecture based on the nearby grave of William Dowell, a member of the Pardoe residence in the 1850s. Land records that might support Pardoe ownership were destroyed, along with other county records, in a courthouse fire in 1882.

Documentary evidence of a structure at the site is confined to a reference in tax sale documents of 1892, which describes the property as being 24 acres with a “comfortable dwelling house” listed as existing in 1889. The house appears to have been no longer extant by 1897. No historic maps depict the house. The best estimate for its construction is sometime in the 1850s, as the Blunt family shows up in the census records for Calvert County around that time. They are present in the 1860-1880 US census lists. James E. Blunt defaulted on his mortgage in 1892, necessitating the tax sale which records the presence of the house. The property was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Grover. The Grovers sold the property to H. Gordon Trueman in 1919. Trueman’s estate would eventually pass to his daughter, Mrs. Larry Forman, who who sold the property to the State Highway Administration.

The site was identified in 1974 during a survey of a highway improvement project corridor. The site was recognized during preliminary reconnaissance, because of a cluster of architectural and domestic debris, as well as some prehistoric lithics, in a plowed field. Subsequently, a surface survey and collection was carried out, with the recovery of both historic and prehistoric artifacts. Interviews with a local farmer who had plowed the field indicated the potential for in situ architectural remains because of difficulty when plowing this portion of the site.

This preliminary survey was followed up with a systematic survey in 1980. A controlled surface collection of a 50 X 50 ft. section of the field was gridded into 10 X 10 ft. sampling squares. Artifacts collected included 307 fragments of brick, 91 pieces of architectural stone, 77 mortar pieces, 9 plaster fragments, 15 nails, 2 buttons, 61 ceramic sherds, 29 shell fragments, 45 unidentified glass fragments, and 14 miscellaneous objects. The preponderance of building and habitation materials led to probing of the area with a metal rod and exposure of a U-shaped brick and sandstone feature.

Based on the surface collection and probing, thirteen test units and trenches of varying sizes were excavated atop potential features and artifact concentrations. One test unit and a trench were excavated in the “house area”. The result was the exposure of a U-shaped brick and sandstone feature, roughly 1 X 1.52 m in size, interpreted to be a chimney base. A builder’s trench was also encountered.

Phase II testing in 1984 entailed archival research, controlled surface collection, and the excavation of test squares and trenches. The surface collection began with the establishment of a collection grid of 3 X 3 m squares across the site. Artifacts collected from each square, defining two concentrations: one on the south end and another on the slope to the north. The southern artifact concentration, particularly mortar, defined the location of a former structure. The other was viewed as a potential outbuilding location and subjected to test square excavations.

Test units concentrated on relocating the features identified in 1980 and also were placed in areas of artifact density in a search for outbuildings or outlying features. Eleven 1 m test squares, and one 5 m X 50 cm trench and another smaller trench were excavated. The trench and outlying squares yielded negative results. In the trench there were some shallow pockets of brick, mortar, and oyster shell, likely related to demolition of the structure. In the area of the secondary concentration, downslope and north of the main concentration, evidence of severe erosion was encountered.

The feature described as a mortared fieldstone “chimney” by the earlier work was determined to be a cellar bulkhead entrance. Several pockets of cellar fill were identified, but no evidence of a cellar lining or foundation. Soil augering determined that the cellar was small, unlined, shallow, and filled with occupational and demolition debris truncated by repeated plowing. Analysis of the diagnostic artifacts revealed that the vast majority date to the mid-late 19th century.

Given the presence of subsurface features it would appear that 18CV175 has reasonably good integrity. With the exception of plowing and erosion, the site had not been adversely impacted. The plowing doubtlessly affected shallow features at the site, incorporating their contents into the plow-disturbed horizon. The extent of the plow disturbance and erosion is indicated by the absence of features with the exception of the remnant of the cellar hole. Hence, while the site has reasonably good integrity, unplowed or less deeply plowed sites from the same period would have much greater integrity and hence greater significance.

(Edited from the Maryland Historical Trust Synthesis Project)