Cannon Bluff (18FR808)

This site was recorded by R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. in March of 2004 during Phase I testing of the Cannon Bluff Subdivision. The historic artifact scatter was associated with an extant historic farmstead. The archeological site measures 150 x 135m and includes portions of an agricultural field and the unplowed areas surrounding the farmhouse. The majority of the artifacts were recovered from the edge of the plowed field near the farmhouse. No features were identified during shovel testing, although the potential exists for their presence at the site. Artifacts recovered included 86 historic ceramics, 105 glass, 3 brick, 3 metal, a fragment of animal bone, and a piece of plastic. Three pieces of rhyolite debitage were also recovered from the site.

No structure is depicted in this location on the 1873 C.O. Titus & Co. Atlas. A structure located 300m to the northwest of this site was owned by a Mrs. Angleberger on this atlas, and a house and mill complex owned by William Feaga was located 300m to the southwest. This house does, however, appear on the 1909 Frederick USGS 15' quad (surveyed in 1907). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the house was constructed between 1873 and 1907, but that artifacts from earlier nearby houses may also have been deposited in this area.

In April of 2005, Goodwin & Associates conducted Phase II testing of the Feaga-Albaugh Farmstead site (Cannon Bluff Site G-1). The portion of the site located along the western edge of the agricultural field was surface collected in 5 m squares. Shovel testing in the yard area was undertaken at 5 m intervals. Shovel testing in the agricultural field was undertaken at 10 m and 20 m intervals. A total of 201 shovel tests were excavated as part of the evaluation. Remote sensing survey was undertaken in a roughly 50 x 50 m area surrounding the farmhouse. Eleven 1 x 1 m test units were excavated at the site.

The surface collection revealed a low-density prehistoric artifact scatter across the entire collection area and a historic artifact scatter that, as the collection progressed farther from the farm complex, decreased in artifact density. Systematic shovel testing of the residential yard and portions of the surrounding farmyard and agricultural field indicated that both the prehistoric and historic artifact scatters extended across the remainder of the site area and appeared to represent two distinct occupational components: an indeterminate prehistoric period component; and an early nineteenth to twentieth century historic component. Test units placed to determine stratigraphic sequences and investigate locations from which historic artifacts related to the early period of occupation of the farmhouse were recovered, revealed significant subsurface disturbance from long-term cultivation of the site area. Isolated areas of limited stratigraphic integrity related to each component of the site were identified during the course of the Phase II investigation. These areas, however, represented the truncated basal expressions of cultural features or former ground surfaces; no intact living surfaces were identified.

The Phase II evaluation of Site 18FR808 resulted in the recovery of 4,827 historic artifacts, including 54 artifacts whose periods of manufacture extended into the late eighteenth century. These "early" artifacts comprised 1.1 per cent of the artifact assemblage and included fragments of tin-enameled earthenware, creamware, and pearlware; a fragment of German Westerwald gray stoneware; and a small number of hand-wrought nails. The overwhelming majority of the temporally diagnostic artifacts recovered from Site 18FR808 were first manufactured after 1800. This group of artifacts includes ceramic varieties such as whiteware and domestic stoneware that are still produced today, as well as yellowware, ironstone, and other domestic stonewares that have finite periods of production. Molded and machine-made glass; cut and wire nails; aluminum items; and synthetic items represent additional artifact types that were produced exclusively during the nineteenth and/or twentieth centuries. Artifacts first manufactured after 1800 account for over three-quarters (76 per cent; n = 742) of the 976 artifacts for which a manufacture period was determined. Of the remaining datable artifacts, only production of Westerwald stoneware ceased before the end of the eighteenth century. All other ceramic types, including the “early” ceramics, were manufactured into the first quarter of the nineteenth century. As such, the artifact assemblage recovered from Site 18FR808 is typical for an archeological site whose period of occupation began during the early nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth century.

The prehistoric component of Site 18FR808 consists of a generalized scatter of lithic debitage that appears to represent the repeated use of the site and surrounding area during the prehistoric period. The prehistoric component, however, lacks sufficient vertical depositional integrity, the quantity of material, and the diagnostic artifacts necessary to address questions related to prehistoric settlement and changing land use patterns within the Tuscarora Creek drainage, or to provide substantive comparative information necessary to refine regional prehistoric cultural contexts.

Temporally, the historic component of Site 18FR808 reflects the occupational period of the Feaga-Albaugh Farmstead (F-3-226), a recommended National Register eligible agricultural complex that has been continuously occupied since the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Although historic artifacts potentially related to the late eighteenth century use of the property were recovered, these artifacts were found in association with diagnostic artifacts reflecting the known period of occupation of the farmstead and, as such, did not sufficiently demonstrate that historic settlement occurred within the site area prior to the construction and occupation of the current farmhouse by Jacob Angleberger between 1825 and 1835. Intensive cultivation of the site area during much of the period of historic occupation has truncated the upper extent of the soil column, thoroughly mixing all former occupation surfaces and preserving only the basal extent of only one historic feature, a possible burning pit that had apparently been deeply excavated into the subsoil horizon. No other intact historic depositional or stratigraphic sequences related to the historic development of the farmstead were identified.

(Edited from archeological site survey form, Maryland Historical Trust)