St. Inigoes Manor House at Priest's Point (18ST87)

Site 18ST87 is located aboard the Naval Air Station Patuxent River’s Webster Field Annex in St. Inigoes, Maryland. In 1637, Jesuit missionaries purchased the land where the site is located and established a settlement there. The settlement at St. Inigoes was a working farm where inhabitants raised tobacco and other crops to support the Jesuit mission. In the mid-18th-century, Father James Ashby oversaw the construction of a new St. Inigoes Manor House at Priest’s Point (18ST87), about 1600 feet southwest of its previous location. This dwelling became the new plantation center, and was accompanied by several outbuildings. An 1820 sketch of the site shows a windmill, miller’s house, corn house, stable, store, shop, meat house, weaver’s house, cow house, brick barn, quarters, and a church.

The new dwelling house burned down in 1872, but within a few weeks of the fire, a two-story structure was built upon the east-wing foundations. This became the priests’ residence until the property was acquired by the Navy in 1942. The Navy renovated the structure to be a quarter for single officers, but it quickly fell into disrepair. In the 1970s, the house was documented and its crumbling walls were partially torn down. The original east wall and part of the foundation, however, are still extant.

A series of studies of 18ST87 have been conducted since it was first recorded in 1976. The most comprehensive Phase I was completed in 1996. This study identified three historic components within 18ST87. Historic Component 1 contained domestic artifacts dating from the mid-18th to the mid-20th centuries. At least two structures were identified. The first structure had brick chimney foundations and is believed to be a two-story tenant house that was the residence of a Mr. Roach in the 19th century and a Ms. Raley in the 20th century. The other structure was presumably an outbuilding associated with this dwelling. Historic Component 1 also encompasses the area of the mid-18th-century plantation where the miller’s house, a windmill, a corn house, and a stable were located, and presumably the 18th-century artifacts are associated with these buildings.

Historic Component 2 was the location of a late 19th-century or early 20th-century outbuilding. Historic Component 3 encompasses the western tip of Priests Point where the ruins of the St. Inigoes Manor House are located. Various outbuildings associated with the Manor House should also be located in Historic Component 3, though none were identified during the 1996 survey.

Multiple Phase II studies were also undertaken at 18ST87. In 1983, three test units were excavated to expose portions of a possible weaver’s house. The same year, ten test units were excavated around the Manor House to locate foundations and determine layout of the structure. This work uncovered the buried foundations of the west wing and the central portion adjacent to the east wing ruin. At least 80% of the artifacts recovered in the excavation of the manor house in 1983 were architectural debris like brick, mortar, plaster, window glass and nails. Additional test units were excavated along the site’s shoreline in 2002 prior to a riverbank stabilization project. Twenty postholes/molds, five pit features, three trenches, and two fill episodes were identified by the study, though some features were modern in origin, and no further excavation was undertaken to understand the relationships that might exist between features. Instead, the shoreline stabilization was redesigned to avoid and protect the site.

In 2016, archaeologists from St. Mary’s College of Maryland undertook investigations of the weaver’s house, originally found in 1982. Twenty-six shovel tests and two 5 x 2.5 ft. test units were excavated and findings support the conclusion that this was the weaver’s house.

In 2002, R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates dug 65 shovel test pits, conducted remote sensing and excavated 13 10 x 10 ft. units at the site. A total of 9,156 historic artifacts and 163 pre-contact artifacts (not including oyster shell) was recovered. The historic component included 30 features at the plowzone/subsoil interface. These features included posthole/molds, trenches and fill layers associated with all periods of the historic occupation (c. 1750-1942).

The St. Inigoes Manor House at Priest’s Point archaeological collections are owned by the Naval District Washington, Naval Air Station Patuxent River Webster Field Annex and curated by the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

(Site summary revised from one prepared for Diagnostic Artifacts in Maryland webpage by Sara Rivers Cofield)