Anketill's Neck (18ST707)

Anketill's Neck (18ST707) is an archaeological site onboard the Naval Air Station Patuxent River that includes both a historic component dating to around 1650 to 1675 and a prehistoric component dating to the Terminal Archaic through the Late Woodland periods.

During the 17th century, the general site location was associated with a Francis Anketill, from whom the site draws its name. Anketill was probably born in London around 1625, arriving in Maryland in 1641 as an indentured servant brought by Thomas Cornwallis. In 1647 Anketill appeared to have been in the employ of Nicholas Harvey, a wealthy planter. After he worked off his passage, Anketill may have gone to Virginia for a time. The first indication of a connection between Francis Anketill and the St. Mary’s County site comes from 1654. In that year, Anketill leased a property then "commonly known" as Anketill's Neck from William Eltonhead for rent of "one Barrell of Sound Indian Corn." Since the property was already known as Anketill's Neck in 1654, it is likely that Francis Anketill had been in residence for some time. Court records from 1650 suggest that Anketill was already living on "that Neck" sometime between 1647 and 1650.

Francis Anketill did well for himself in Maryland. In 1659 he claimed headrights to 500 acres of land on the basis of transporting himself, his wife, his brother, and two servants to the colony (100 acres per person). In reality, Anketill was himself transported to Maryland by Thomas Cornwallis, who had returned to England and was no longer around to protest. Everyone else had likely forgotten Anketill's origins. Using his ill-gotten headrights, Anketill patented 500 acres of land on Harris’ Creek, a tributary of the Choptank River. The Anketills may never have lived on this land, which they treated more as an investment than a plantation. By 1692 the family had sold all of their Eastern Shore holdings, investing the proceeds in more property in St. Mary's County.

Francis Anketill died early in 1675. His probate inventory survives and lists two indentured servants, 12 cattle, 2 horses, and one gold and two silver rings. The household goods were rather limited: 5 pewter vessels, 2 iron pots, a copper kettle, a frying pan, a tin skillet, 2 glass case bottles, 2 round glass bottles, and only 3 ceramic vessels (two tankards and a jug). The inventory provides some information about the sort of house maintained by Anketill. It begins, “In the old house,” which suggests that the house at Anketill's plantation had not been replaced since it was built in about 1650. The description of rooms and goods indicates that the Anketills lived in a "hall-parlor" house, divided into a larger, heated room called the hall and a smaller, unheated room called the parlor or the chamber.

Francis Anketill's will divided the land on the Eastern Shore among his three sons and the leased land at Anketill's Neck was left to the eldest Francis Jr. Unfortunately for the heir, the status of the land at Anketill’s Neck was far from clear in 1675. William Eltonhead had died in 1655 and his widow, Jane Eltonhead, inherited his lands. In 1658 she took Francis Anketill to court, with the result that the terms of his lease were restated and enrolled in the court record. After Jane’s death in 1659, her property was disputed and several lawsuits were filed, but in 1668, 600 acres of Little Eltonhead Manor were purchased by Charles Calvert. Charles Calvert did not wish to let his land to tenants but preferred that it be worked by his own servants. He was not agreeable when Francis Anketill, Jr., set about trying to renew the lease on Anketill's Neck. Anketill tried to claim that he had tried to pay the heriot that would have allowed him to inherit the tenement under the old lease, but Calvert claimed it had not been paid and that anyway Anketill was years behind on the rent. Calvert took control of the land.

After the imposing Charles Calvert had returned to England, and had deeded Mattapany to his stepson Nicholas Sewall, Francis Jr. sued for his right to take up the lease. Sewall bought off Anketill's claim by giving him two servants and 250 acres of land elsewhere. These events mark the last appearance of the Anketill’s Neck leasehold in the records, and indeed the property was probably vacant for centuries after 1675.

The next sign of any activity on the Anketill’s Neck Site is an aerial photograph from the 1930s, which seems to show a small shed within or just south of the site. Since the area around the site was agricultural, the shed was probably related to agricultural activity. The site began its current role as part of a naval installation in the middle of the 20th century.

The site was first identified archaeologically in 1998-1999 during a shovel test survey carried out along the margins of the tidal creeks at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Shovel tests at 18ST707 encountered both prehistoric and colonial artifacts. Prehistoric materials from the site included Middle and Late Woodland pottery (Mockley and Townsend), as well as a biface, debitage and fire cracked rock. Colonial artifacts recovered included window lead, handwrought nails, coarse earthenware, Midlands purple earthenware, Rhenish stoneware, wine bottle glass fragment, white clay and terra cotta tobacco pipe fragments. The site was defined as measuring about 100 meters east-west by 135 meters north-south. The colonial artifacts were concentrated in an area measuring about 45 X 45 meters approximately in the center of the site.

Phase II testing consisting of shovel tests and test unit excavations was carried out in November of 2008. Four shovel tests were excavated during the Phase II work to confirm the western boundary of the site. The 4 STPs verified that the site boundaries did not, in fact, extend further in that direction. In addition, six supplemental STPs were excavated around formal test units to inspect the extent of potential features or soil anomalies. Twelve test units measuring 1.5 x 1.5 meters were according to natural stratigraphic levels. All features noted in the units were excavated with the exception of an apparent grave shaft, which was only tested.

In general, the prehistoric component of the Anketill’s Neck Site was found to consist of a thin scatter of debitage. With one exception, the number of prehistoric artifacts varied from 0 to 11 artifacts per test unit. A Savannah River variant projectile point and a fragment of steatite, suggest occupation during Terminal Archaic times. One unit (in the south-central portion of the site) produced a much more substantial prehistoric assemblage. Stratigraphy in this unit revealed the presence of a buried ravine. This unit produced 1 Piscataway point, 1 Calvert point, 1 other biface, 13 ceramic sherds (2 Rappahannock, 7 Popes Creek including 1 rim), 85 pieces of debitage, and 30 pieces of fire-cracked rock. Two of the potsherds were quite large, one Late Woodland (Rappahannock incised) and one Middle Woodland (Popes Creek). The presence of pottery can be explained partly by the lack of disturbance to these deposits, which were deeply buried under soil that washed into the ravine in historic times and then fill deposited when a weapons storage area was built as part of the naval installation. The great difference in artifact density between this unit and the others must be the result of prehistoric events, not recent disturbance. Perhaps there was a spring running in the ravine hear and near it, a perfect camping spot no more than 7.5 meters across. The artifacts recovered from this area could all date to the Middle and Late Woodland periods, and the Piscataway point could date to the Terminal Archaic or Early Woodland times.

The historic artifacts recovered from Anketill’s Neck are what one would expect at a small plantation from the second half of the 17th century. However, it must be noted that the quantity of material recovered from the site was very small compared to other sites of the period occupied by similar less wealthy, less prominent planters. The reason(s) for this disparity are not immediately apparent. Perhaps the Anketills simply did not acquire as many goods as some of their neighbors. Francis Anketill's probate inventory is not notably rich in household goods and lists only 3 ceramic vessels. Probate inventories are not reliable guides to the presence of inexpensive items like earthenware jars and pans, but Anketill’s inventory is fairly detailed, and perhaps in this matter it is correct. In any event, the low artifact density at the Anketill's Neck Site makes the site unusual, and it suggests that life there was more like the life of the many poor households that made up most of Maryland’s 17th-century population.

No post holes or other structural features relating to the historic occupation were identified at the site. However, it should be noted that only a very small portion of the site was excavated. Given the site’s date and horizontal integrity such features are almost certainly present. Horizontal integrity was revealed by the spatial differentiation of various artifacts types. For example, the presence of the vast majority of brick and nail pieces in the center portion of the site suggested that the Anketill dwelling was likely situated in the very center of the site. A filled-in ravine was documented at the site. The ravine appears to have been filled in the 20th century, but may have collected refuse as well during the 17th-century occupation of the site. The 20th-century filling of the ravine would have buried any extant historic deposits along with the aforementioned prehistoric deposits intact. One unit also revealed an anomaly that may relate to a historic burial. This possible grave feature suggests that a small family cemetery might be present at 18ST707.

The Anketill’s Neck Site (18ST707) encompasses the remains of a small plantation dating from the third quarter of the 17th century. Based on archival evidence, the site probably represents the plantation of Francis Anketill, who came to Maryland as an indentured servant in 1641, eventually acquired property at Anketill's Neck, and likely occupied the plantation from the early 1650s until his death in 1675. The site does not appear to have been occupied or reused after its abandonment in the late 17th century. Although portions of the site have been minimally disturbed by filling and earth moving actions, the site as a whole retains good subsurface integrity. The site has the demonstrated potential to yield important information regarding Maryland's ordinary planters during the mid–late 17th century.

(Edited from the Maryland Historical Trust Synthesis Project)