417 North Jonathan Street Cabin (18WA631)

The site is an early 19th-century standing cabin at 417 North Jonathan Street in Hagerstown, Maryland. Deposits encountered in the backyard include three strata that appear to date to approximately the early period of German immigrant residents (1840-1900), early African American residents (1900-1930), and later African American residents (1930 to present).

The property which today contains the cabin was unimproved when it was sold in 1836 to Issac Clark. By the end of 1837, Clark had constructed a residence on a portion of the property but sold an unimproved parcel to Philip Fisher in December of 1837. By 1840, Fisher had built the small cabin now standing at 417 North Jonathan Street and he lived there with his wife Maria Haus Fisher for at least twenty years. Fisher, of German descent, was a laborer and stone mason. He sold the property in 1872, before which time the house appeared to have been rented out to one or two female-headed households. The property was purchased by Henry and Mary Catherine May; Henry May worked for the railroad as a watchman.

In 1882, the property passed to Annie M. Bentley, its first Black owner. Sometime between 1884 and 1891, the property left Bentley’s possession. In 1891, Frederick J. Hahn became the owner and rented the property out to a series of white residents. Starting in 1903, all subsequent residents of 417 North Jonathan Street were African American. After passing out of Hahn's ownership in 1910, the property was owned by John W. Williams, a Black merchant who resided elsewhere. The property has been occupied by a number of Black renters and owners. In 2020, Preservation Maryland purchased the property.

Archival and archaeological work at the site was conducted by A.D. Marble and the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration in the fall of 2020. The goals of the work were to learn the age and evolution of the site and to understand differences in material culture of the earlier European-descended inhabitants and the later Black residents.

The extent of the archaeological work consisted of digging 30 shovel test pits, 3 5x5 ft test units, and 1 2.5x5 ft test unit. The work yielded 2,750 artifacts and 289 faunal remains. One intact subsurface feature was identified, as well as various yard surfaces and midden deposits from different activities and time periods at the site. The feature (Feature 1) was a line of brick set under a dripline as an erosion control measure. Three distinct strata were identified along the rear and side portions of the back yard and included: Stratum I (dated from the early 20th century to the present day), Stratum II (late 19th to early 20th-century layer) and an intact mid- to late 19th-century buried yard surface and plowzone (Stratum III). Close to the rear of the cabin, construction work associated with the cabin had caused significant disturbance to the archaeological record.

(Written by Patricia Samford)