Charles' Gift (18ST704)

Charles' Gift plantation was established by Nicholas Sewall when he came of age c. 1676. Nicholas Sewall was the eldest son of Henry and Jane Sewall, and after his father's death and mother's remarriage, he became the stepson of Charles Calvert in 1666. Nicholas Sewall grew up at the Mattapany-Sewall site which he would have inherited had his father lived. Since Charles Calvert married into the property and established his home there, however, Calvert gifted another parcel of land to Jane Sewall to make up for her children’s lost inheritance. When Nicholas came of age, he presumably settled the tract, which became known as Charles' Gift plantation.

Nicholas Sewall, his wife Susanna, and their children lived at the site through the tumultuous period of the 1689 Protestant rebellion and the overthrow of the Calvert Proprietary, and passed the land to several generations of descendants. Though different dwellings and structures were erected over the years, Sewall descendants occupied the property until 1836. The site then passed to a series of different owners, but continued as a farmstead until it was purchased by the Navy in 1943.

Archaeological Investigations

18ST704 was identified when proposed changes to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River's Officer's Club prompted an archaeological survey. Phase III excavations were performed to recover data from intact features that were slated to be impacted by the Officer’s Club project. The excavations revealed that the intact subsurface features were so extensive as to warrant abandonment of the construction project in favor of conservation of the archaeological site.

The excavations were conducted in two locations, both within grassy areas encircled by the drive leading to the Officer's Club. A large excavation area was opened inside the larger traffic circle (Big Circle Area), and a smaller excavation area opened in grassy circle to the south (Little Circle Area).

Big Circle Area

A large number of features was discovered in the Big Circle Area. The major cluster of features representing the Charles’ Gift site comprised a row of postholes that probably represent the north wall of Nicholas Sewall's c. 1676 dwelling, a brick foundation from Sewall's replacement dwelling constructed c. 1694 and occupied into the early 19th century, and a large borrow pit excavated for the extraction of clay for the brick foundation of the c. 1694 house.

The borrow pit, Feature 12, was filled with over 25,000 artifacts, including construction debris from the c. 1694 structure and demolition debris from the c. 1676 structure. It therefore represents a pre-1700 component of the first Sewall occupation of the site. A late 17th-century midden was present in one area of the site and a disturbed midden with 17th-to 19th-century artifacts was also present east, west and north of the large borrow pit. Three possible posthole features to the north (not excavated) and sealed beneath a late 17th-century midden were postulated as having been associated with the earlier Eltonhead Manor component of the site.

The house (c. 1694-c. 1814) measured 28 x 48 ft. with a 14 x 16 ft. addition; this structure was described in the 1798 tax records. The house had an internal end chimney and by the late 18th or early 19th centuries, an external end chimney. The house also had a central brick-lined cellar (Features 10 and 30), which was filled with destruction debris after the attack by British troops in 1814. The cellar also contained three strata (Levels 17-19) that were interpreted as cellar floor levels predating the 1814 destruction of the building. The structure was reconstructed around 1817, with an extended length of 31.5 ft., a full-length porch and a southern addition. A brick sidewalk extended north from the northern side of the structure in the 18th century, but the walkway appeared to have been abandoned after the 1770s.

About thirty feet southeast of the southeast corner of Feature 12 (the borrow pit) was a cluster of oval and rectangular pits that were identified in the archaeological report variously as refuse pits or postholes. These features might instead have been subfloor pits associated with an 18th-century structure. A partial brick foundation wall was exposed in this area as well, but it is unclear as to whether this foundation was associated with the pits.

A group of postholes (Features 58, 59, 65 and 68) discovered in the southwest portion of the Big Circle excavation appear to be part of an earthfast structure dating to the 18th century. Nearby was a large pit (Feature 39) that cut the borrow pit. This feature was filled with architectural debris and kitchen garbage, possibly from an overseer's house that was damaged during the 1814 raid.

Little Circle Area

In the Little Circle Area, excavation revealed six posthole/postmolds that appeared to form an 18th-century earthfast structure (or at least a portion of a structure). The six postholes (B, C, K, L, P, Q) formed a 19 by 7.5 ft. rectangle. These postholes may represent a portion of a larger structure that extended to the east, beyond the limits of the excavation.

(Adapted and expanded from 17th- and Early 18th-Century Architecture Along the Patuxent River, Maryland)