Smith's St. Leonard(18CV91)

The Smith’s St. Leonard Site (18CV91) was the homelot of a tobacco plantation occupied during the first half of the 18th century in Calvert County, Maryland. It is situated today at the southern end of Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (JPPM), on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Patuxent River and St. Leonard’s Creek.

Documentary evidence suggests that Richard Smith Jr. built a residence at this location in 1711. After Richard’s death in 1715, the property was inherited by his son, Walter, who in turn left it to his son, Nathaniel. Nathaniel died shortly thereafter, and left it to his brother, John. After John’s death in 1754, the plantation was willed to his nephew, Walter, a child, and the only surviving Smith male. At this time the homelot was abandoned. Court records from the early 1770s indicate that the Smith house and surrounding outbuildings were in ruins by that time.

The Smith’s St. Leonard Site was first identified in 1981 during a preliminary archaeological survey of the Patterson property. No further work was done on the site until 1999, when a small trash pit was uncovered during a shoreline stabilization project. The unusual artifacts recovered from this pit, when combined with the detailed documentary evidence available on the Smith family residency, led JPPM archaeologists to make the site the subject of the museum’s annual Public Archaeology Program.

In May 2002, the first extensive investigation of the site began. The trash pit first uncovered in 1999 was fully excavated in 2002. Excavations continued, from 2003-2008 during the park’s public archaeology program in May and June, and from year-round from 2009-2016, except for the winter months.

Approximately 280- 1.5 meter units have been excavated at the site since 2002, and over 4 million artifacts recovered. This count includes vast amounts of brick and oyster shell. Archaeological evidence of the main house, kitchen, stable, several outbuildings, and a possible well have been uncovered. The stable is the only known 18th-century stable in Maryland to date.

Some of these buildings appear to be a quarters for enslaved workers. Comparing the artifacts and features found at this structure with those uncovered at the Smiths’ own nearby residence provides an opportunity to examine 18th-century social relations on the plantation. The rich 18th-century documentary record on the site adds to the database. The picture of social relations can be expanded diachronically when the evidence from 18CV91 is compared to two other sites on the plantation: 18CV83, Richard Smith Jr.’s home from c.1690-1711, and 18CV92, where Smith’s father lived starting in the early 1660s. The Smith’s St. Leonard Site is also important because in southern Maryland the archaeological evidence of 17th-century life is, perhaps surprisingly, better known than that of the 18th century. Investigations at 18CV91 help fill in these gaps in the archaeological record.

The archaeological record supported the documentary evidence which indicated that the Smith’s St. Leonard Site was occupied from c. 1711-1754. Only a couple of artifacts dating to before 1711 were found, and no creamware or other later 18th-century objects were recovered. 18CV91 will continue to be the subject of archaeological investigations by JPPM staff.

(Edited from Archaeological Collections in Maryland)