Church Hill Streetscape (18QU990)

The Church Hill Streetscape site (18QU990) consists of a variety of late 18th- through 20th-century archaeological resources discovered along Main and Walnut streets in the historic center of the town of Church Hill in Queen Anne’s County.

A mill complex was established at Church Hill in the late 1600s, and town development soon followed. The extant St. Luke’s Church was erected there in 1732. By the end of the 18th century, Church Hill was a small commercial center with stores, taverns, and mill structures, as well as a dozen houses and two churches. The town continued to grow in the 19th century, with economic activity centered around the processing and trade of agricultural goods. Much of the town center was destroyed by two fires in 1927. The area was rebuilt, and has largely been preserved, thanks to Church Hill’s isolation after Route 213 was moved to bypass the town in the 1970s.

The Maryland State Highway Administration made improvements to Main and Walnut streets in Church Hill in 2005. Archaeological investigations for this work generally consisted of monitoring construction trenches along either side of the roads (out to a distance of 15’), although two test units were also excavated. Fourteen subsurface features were encountered. They included six foundations dating to the mid to late 19th century and one dating to the mid-20th century; two 20th-century utility trenches, one with a terra cotta pipe; midden deposits from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century; a 19th/20th-century brick floor or sidewalk; and three post-1927 brick fire wells. Sporadic sections of an early 20th-century cobble shoulder were also noted.

(Written by Ed Chaney)