Point Lookout (18ST61)

The Point Lookout site (18ST61) is a complex of extant and non-extant structures dating back to at least the first half of 19th century. Extant buildings include the 1830 Point Lookout Lighthouse, a late 19th-century buoy shed and coal shed, and a ca. 1900 smokehouse. Archaeological remains include a U.S. hospital from the Civil War. The site is located at the mouth of the Potomac River, on the far eastern end of Point Lookout, in St. Mary’s County. It is on Point Lookout State Park, but for many years much of the site was part of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.

Although the greater Point Lookout area was patented in 1634, there is little evidence for intense activity on 18ST61 itself before 1830, when lighthouse construction began. It was a one-and-a-half story structure combining the light tower and the keeper’s quarters, with an attached kitchen. Various outbuildings were added through the 19th century, along with a long wharf, and the lighthouse was raised to two stories in the 1880s. In 1878, a Coast Guard station was established next to the lighthouse, and stayed in use until 1937. The lighthouse ceased official function in 1966, although the building continued as a residence until the 1980s.

In 1862, the Federal government established a military hospital next to the lighthouse. It consisted of 16 wings arranged like the spokes of a wheel, with four buildings in the center of the circle. The hospital served both Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners from the nearby POW camp. At the end of the war, the hospital was demolished.

In the 1970s and 1980s, various archaeological projects were undertaken across Point Lookout, both on land and offshore, with very limited testing done at 18ST61. But Phase I/II investigations were conducted at the site in 1995, on approximately 6 acres of land. A total of 385 shovel test pits and 16 test units were excavated. Not surprisingly, there were artifact concentrations around the extant structures, and most of the features uncovered appeared to be associated with the lighthouse. The location of the hospital, west of the lighthouse, was indicated mostly by architectural artifacts, particularly nails and an asphalt-like composition roofing material. Clusters of these objects corresponded very closely with each of the proposed locations of the hospital’s wings, as indicated by a Civil War-era map of Point Lookout. Non-architectural artifacts that could be directly associated with the hospital were relatively rare. This probably reflects the fact that Civil War hospitals were often forced into extreme recycling, even of scraps of cloth and pieces of bone, in order to survive, and also that trash disposal probably occurred offshore, where the latrines were. Non-architectural artifacts were more common around the lighthouse, but even there the numbers were not terribly high, as the Lighthouse Service required keepers to maintain a clean work area.

(Edited from the Maryland Historical Trust Synthesis Project)