Catoctin Furnace (18FR324)

Catoctin Furnace is a group of archaeological sites associated with a 10,000-acre iron working furnace complex dating from the late 18th and 19th centuries in Frederick County, Maryland. The collection includes materials from the foundry site (18FR320), a springhouse site (18FR321), an African-American slave cemetery (18FR323), and a 19th-century miner’s house (18FR324). These sites were documented in 1977 during a Phase I survey by Orr and Son for the proposed dualization of U.S. Route 15 between Putnam Road and Maryland Route 77 in Thurmont. Catoctin Furnace represents a valuable resource for documenting the development of the iron industry in the United States and increasing understanding about the lifestyles and material culture of its workers.

The Carty House Site (18FR324) is a 19th-century dwelling for one of the iron workers at the Catoctin Iron Furnace. Possibly associated with Earl Carty, a worker at the Big Ore Bank, this log cabin had a stone foundation measuring approximately 21-by-21 feet, with a cellar at its south end. The site is significant for the information it revealed about the lifestyles and material culture of the workers at the Catoctin Iron Furnace.

Orr and Son excavated two two-by-two-foot test units, four two-and-a-half-by-two-and-a-half-foot test units, and a trench measuring one-by-five feet within both the stone ruins and the yard of the Carty House. In 1979, Mid-Atlantic Archaeological Research, Inc. (MAAR) conducted Phase II excavations in the Carty House west yard, which fell within the highway right-of-way. Seventy-four shovel test pits were excavated at five-foot intervals with a six-inch post-hole digger to subsoil or a depth of 30 inches. Five-foot test units placed across the west yard were then excavated following natural strata. All soil was screened through ¼-inch mesh. Four major features were uncovered: a brick sidewalk, a subsurface trash deposit, a shallow trench, and a brick slab covered with Portland cement, possibly representing an outbuilding. MAAR also excavated the builder’s trench of the structure, and two postholes. Unfortunately, MAAR’s report on the Carty House and its associated paperwork have not been located, so all information concerning their excavation was located in Orr and Son’s 1980 Interim Report.

A total of 5,954 artifacts were recovered from excavations at the Carty House. They represent the domestic refuse of the dwelling’s inhabitants between its construction around 1825 through the early 20th century, when it was abandoned.

(Edited from Archaeological Collections in Maryland)