John Smith Map of Virginia, 1612, engraved by Ralph Hall, circa 1637 John Smith completed several exploratory voyages on behalf of the Jamestown colony, first along the James River in 1607 and then along the Chesapeake in 1608. Although he returned to England in 1609, his 1612 map of the region and his 1624 Generall Historie of Virginia became prime sources on the geography and culture of the region. New York Public Library
WHAT HAPPENED?
“…heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation…here are mountains, hills, plains, valleys, rivers, and brookes, all running most pleasantly into a faire Bay compassed but for the mouth with fruitful and delightful land.”
The Piscataway people initially welcomed the English as neighbors during the early years of colonization, hoping they would provide protection against warring groups to the north. However, as the colony of Maryland prospered the English turned against the Piscataway and fought for control of the land and its valuable resources.
Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory
EUROPEANS MAKE CONTACT
The people of the Potomac were generous to the explorers and appeared to hope that the English would prove valuable allies against their local enemies. Prior to European contact, the peoples of the Chesapeake area lived in a complex society with political, religious, and territorial systems that were not very different from those in the rest of the world. In the 1500s, a group of people in what is now central Virginia began to organize Algonquian-speaking neighbors into a centralized confederation. This nation-state was in conflict with groups to the north, west, and south that spoke different languages. At the time of European contact, native peoples were interested in new technologies and materials as possible advantages. The people who lived in this area are recognized to be a group called the Piscataway. The river was a major source of resources and also the primary means of transportation.
Algonquian Village
Late Woodland Pottery
This late-16 -century engraving depicts native structures, agriculture, and spiritual life.
This pottery with incised decoration was typical of the people of the western shore.
th
THE PISCATAWAY The Piscataway people were similar to many other peoples of the Chesapeake in that they depended on the river and bay for many of their needs. Fishing and hunting were essential skills, as were farming and gathering food resources from the surrounding woodlands. Archaeological study of the Piscataway finds that they lived in towns, like their Powhatan neighbors to the south. Towns were often sited on or near prominent land features such as river bluffs for defensive purposes, so that scouts could have a good view of the surrounding area.
Large river terraces with good drainage were also ideal because they could be cleared for growing crops. Sometimes in the warmer months, small groups would occupy outlying settlements; however, by the time of European contact, most would spend the winter in towns. Homes were most likely similar to the yehawkins common in the Tidewater, large rectangular or oval wooden frame structures clad in layers of fiber mats.
Stone tools are also important finds because they can tell us a lot about past lifeways. Finding tools made from stone such as chert, jasper, and rhyolite in local sites indicates that the Piscataway were part of a trade network. The river was an important component in trade, functioning as the main corridor along which people traveled either on foot or in large dugout “canowes.”
Archaeologists have found many artifacts created by the Piscataway and their neighbors that provide insight into their lives. For example, pottery sherds can show how food was prepared, technological innovations in firing clay, and even the fingerprint “signatures” of their creators.
John Smith noted that the Piscataway had a particularly valuable trade item in the form of a mysterious silver powder. The people used the powder, possibly a zinc compound, as decoration and “...sold it all over the Country to deck their Bodies, Faces, and Idols.”
1677 Articles of Peace
MARY KITTAMAQUUND Mary Kittamaquund Brent was the daughter of Piscataway chief Kittamaquund, given into the care of Governor Leonard Calvert and his sister-in-law Margaret Brent in 1641. Among many Chesapeake peoples, it was common for women to act as diplomats and peaceful facilitators between rival groups. Mary’s mentor Margaret Brent became a prominent figure in 17th century Maryland, using her connection to the governor to secure massive land grants in her own name. She also represented herself in a legal case before the state supreme court in 1648.
Library of Congress
Exploring the Chesapeake Bay in 1608, John Smith recorded his encounters with the peoples living on the banks of the “Patawomeck” River. He noted that they spoke Algonquian, “the language of Powhatan,” and that the land they lived in was rich in natural resources.
Library of Congress
Captain John Smith
Some Piscataway fought with their Algonquianspeaking neighbors in the Anglo-Powhatan Wars (1610-1677), but the native people were ultimately defeated. The Piscataway relocated westward and by the 19th century most had been absorbed into other groups. Some Piscataway remained in Maryland and formed the basis for the modern Piscataway Indian Nation.
William and Mary Digital Archive
The First People
Margaret Brent never married and may have been a member of a Jesuit sect of lay sisters. The Calvert family’s commitment to religious freedom in Maryland meant that Margaret was not only free to express her beliefs, but also to be an independent property owner—something that the law prevented in other colonies such as Virginia.
Map of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, 1670 Little is known about Mary’s life except that she married Margaret Brent’s brother Giles in 1644 and moved to Virginia in 1648. Giles claimed thousands of acres of former Piscataway land in Virginia on Mary’s behalf. Their son, also Giles Brent, participated in Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676.
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Bird’s Eye View of Alexandria, 1863 Ships that docked at Alexandria’s bustling wharves carried tobacco all over the world and brought fine goods from Europe for wealthy Maryland planters.
“Bury Me at Oxon Hill”
Library of Congress
The Addisons of Oxon Hill Manor
Colonel Thomas Addison constructed the stately house at Oxon Hill around 1710, possibly to celebrate his 1709 marriage to Eleanor Smith. Eleanor and Thomas lived a social and luxurious lifestyle: entertaining often, dining on silver and porcelain, and drinking wine from crystal glasses. Thanks to the popularity of tobacco, they were among the wealthiest families in Maryland with considerable political influence. At the time of his death in 1727, Thomas had enslaved 75 Africans and owned more than 14,000 acres of land including Oxon Hill.
New York Public Library
Nevertheless, Europe’s demand for tobacco brought settlers, trade, and economic prosperity to the Chesapeake region. A small group of wealthy, well-connected families secured massive land grants early in Maryland’s history and oversaw the operation of vast tobacco plantations. The Addison family were some of the earliest settlers in Prince George’s County and benefited enormously from the colony’s plantation culture. In addition to tobacco cultivation, the Addisons increased their wealth and social standing through trade, land speculation, and military and public service.
Walter Dulaney Addison was born in 1769, the great-grandson of Col. Thomas and Eleanor Addison. Only five years old when he inherited Oxon Hill, Walter was educated in England and returned to Maryland in 1789.
The Life and Times of Walter Dulany Addison
It was tobacco, however, that became the most prized commodity in the New World, particularly in the water-rich, fertile lands of the Western Chesapeake Region. Tobacco became a “cash crop” both figuratively and literally: tobacco leaves were used as currency by planters for nearly 200 years. The smoking (or “drinking,” as it was then called) of cured tobacco leaves became a popular pastime in Europe, making tobacco grown in the colonies a hugely profitable crop. Despite its profitability, tobacco devoured the land, exhausted the soil, and was very tedious to plant and harvest. In the early days of colonization, settlers desperate to turn a profit from their land often neglected other tasks necessary for survival—growing crops for food, building proper shelters, and maintaining an adequate supply of drinking water.
“…during his life a good deal of state was kept up at Oxon Hill... superb English coach horses... [a] fine London built coach and liveried servants.”
A New Map of Virginia and Maryland, 1721 This map illustrates the importance of waterways to the early settlement of the Mid-Atlantic colonies. The first plantations were established along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and gradually extended up its major tributaries, including the James and Potomac Rivers before expanding into the Potomac frontier. In 1695, Prince George’s County was established from parts of Calvert and Charles Counties.
Although he was one of the wealthiest people in the county, Walter led a simple and pious lifestyle. In 1810, he sold Oxon Hill Manor and its 1,300 adjoining acres to planter Zachariah Berry. Walter’s greatest legacy was as a minister in the Episcopal Church. Ordained in 1793, he was rector of St. John’s Church in Broad Creek from 1801 to 1809 and was also a founding member of St. John’s Church in Georgetown. He officiated at the funeral
OUR FIRST PRESIDENT?
of George Washington, and later served as chaplain of the U.S. Senate.
“A man of great individuality and strength of will, full of zeal, and of remarkable independence of thought…” The Life and Times of Walter Dulany Addison
Despite living only briefly at Oxon Hill, Walter retained a fondness for his ancestral estate throughout his life. When he sold the property to Berry in 1810, he retained the Addison family graveyard east of the house. In the months before his death in 1848, he requested of his granddaughter, “...and when I die...Bury me at Oxon Hill.”
John Hanson was a merchant and public official who rose to prominence as a Patriot during the American Revolution. In 1779, he was elected as a Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress. In 1781, Hanson was elected President of the Continental Congress under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation, the precursor to our Constitution. Some historians claim that Hanson deserves the title of the country’s first president, although most recognize that the title belongs to George Washington, who served as first president of the United States under the Constitution.
Wikimedia Commons
Settlers to the New World came in search of gold, but what they found was a rugged landscape whose humbler natural resources would prove to be the greatest source of wealth. Timber, furs, and metal ores that had become rare in Europe were prized in the colonies for their quality and abundance.
Colonel John Addison arrived in the colony of Maryland in 1667, using his wealth and connections to secure a prime grant of several thousand acres on the Potomac River that would later be known as Oxon Hill. In 1677, John
married wealthy widow Rebecca Wilkinson. They resided “in town” at St. Mary’s City, the colonial capital of Maryland until 1694, and left the care of their plantations to overseers. John died while traveling in England ca. 1705-1706, leaving nearly 6,500 acres to his son Thomas.
The Reverend: Walter Dulaney Addison
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy
A PLANTATION SOCIETY
The Colonist: John Addison
The Builder: Thomas Addison
Colonel Thomas Addison 1679-1727
Hanson was also a distant relative by marriage of the Addison Family. He died in 1783 while visiting Oxon Hill Manor and was possibly buried in the Addison Family cemetery, although the exact location of his grave has never been found.
John Hanson First President of the Continental Congress
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A Cotton Plantation on the Mississippi, 1884 Even after the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, many African Americans continued to labor on cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations. They had won their freedom, but continued to face generations of social and economic inequity. Library of Congress
Africans Becoming Americans
Slavery in Maryland in the 17th century was very different from how we think of it today. Most black men and women were native to the Americas and Caribbean islands and arrived as free or indentured servants. English and Irish indentured servants outnumbered black servants until the 1690s—in fact, at this time the black population was less than 10 percent of the colony’s total.
By the turn of the 18th century, approximately 1,000 enslaved Africans had come to Maryland. At the beginning of the American Revolution, that number had risen to nearly 100,000. This massive wave of forced transport and enslavement created an international slave trade industry, which was characterized by its cruelty and inhumanity toward enslaved Africans. Separated from familiar environments and forced into hard labor, the enslaved suffered exhausting conditions, disease, and a high mortality rate. Since a majority of the enslaved population was male, there was little natural reproduction, and the population could only be sustained through continued trade.
Changes at home and abroad slowly altered how slavery was perceived and practiced. In 1664, under the leadership of Charles Calvert, the Maryland Assembly passed a law enforcing permanent, heritable servitude for all black men and women in the colony. The term used was “durante vita,” meaning for the duration of their lives.
These harsh conditions caused discontent and rebellion— sometimes violent—among the slave population. Some practiced subversive measures, like destroying farm equipment and livestock. Others attempted to escape, while those who remained often went to great lengths to secretly preserve their native cultures, customs, and religions.
THE SLAVE INDUSTRY
Planters soon recognized that women and families were important parts of an enslaved population. By the middle of the 18th century, a majority of the enslaved population was native to the colonies. In 1774, Maryland officially ended its participation in the international slave trade.
Beginning in the 1690s, Maryland plantation owners took control of the colony from the Calvert family rule, consolidating their land ownership and political power.
Virginia Memory
Indentured Servitude The first 100 years of servitude in Maryland were different from the years before the Civil War. Laborers on Maryland plantations in the 1600s were mostly of European origin and were either indentured servants, prisoners of war, petty criminals, or debtors. Displaced American Indians also served in bondage. Indentured servitude was almost never for life, and many contracts guaranteed servants land or goods upon fulfillment of their terms.
After the Civil War, many black residents of Prince George’s County found transition to freedom difficult. Many moved to nearby Washington, D.C., in hopes of finding jobs, but many others stayed on as farmhands and laborers. Through economic ingenuity and hard work, black communities began to realize their own American dreams. At the center of these communities was often a church, school, or fraternal organization. Some former slaves were tremendously successful and owned large properties by the end of the 1800s. Others found prosperity in towns, incorporating communities such as North Brentwood that included African-American-owned restaurants, groceries, stores, and industrial works. “Jim Crow” segregation laws enacted after Reconstruction kept white and black society separate but never apart. Beginning in the 1960s, people began working to change the laws and ensure that black Marylanders had the same rights as other citizens— becoming truly African Americans.
Civil War “Contraband,” 1862
SLAVERY AND THE CIVIL WAR On the eve of the Civil War, the enslaved population in Prince George’s County outnumbered the white and free black populations combined. According to the 1860 U.S. Federal Census, the county contained 12,479 slaves, 1,205 free blacks, and 9,650 whites. Despite its proximity to Washington, D.C., Prince George’s County was largely agricultural and relied on a slave population to support its tobacco economy. Maryland did not secede from the Union during the Civil War, but a large proportion of its population was sympathetic to the Confederate cause. President Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in Maryland, as it only affected those states that had seceded. Maryland prohibited slavery through the
ratification of a new constitution in 1864, but it was not until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 that slavery was abolished throughout the United States. During the Civil War, many black men and women escaped from slavery across Union lines. Congress determined that the United States was not legally obligated to return escaped slaves to the Confederacy, but rather classified them as “contraband of war.” The Union Army established contraband camps around military fortifications, and black men and women acted as soldiers and laborers supporting the Union war effort. By the end of the Civil War, approximately 100 contraband camps had been established with 10,000 contraband slaves. Although not technically freedmen, these African American men and women enjoyed benefits often denied under the institution of slavery, including payment and education in exchange for their labor.
Maryland State Archives
From the day the colony was founded in 1634, enslaved Africans played an important role in the history and development of Maryland and Prince George’s County. As skilled laborers, artisans, and farmhands, the enslaved contributed not only to the economic growth of Maryland, but also to its culture, religion, and society. After the Civil War, formerly enslaved Africans reclaimed their freedom, but often in the face of inequality and economic hardship.
FREEDOM ISN’T FREE
Many of these plantation owners cultivated tobacco, a crop that was extremely labor intensive to plant and harvest. As economic changes in Europe reduced emigration of indentured servants, planters seeking to maintain their labor supply turned to the African continent.
Library of Congress
DURANTE VITA
Butler House In 1853, Henry Alexander Butler, a free African American man from Charles County, moved with his family to a portion of the Mt. Welby estate, formerly owned by the Addison family. Although he paid taxes on the property since the 1850s, Butler did not obtain title to the house and the surrounding ten acres of land until 1873. The house also served as a post office, and Union soldiers reportedly stopped there when travelling through the Oxon Hill area. The Butlers operated a small farm that included a chicken house, a meat house, barns, and other supporting agricultural buildings. The Butler family still owns the property.
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The designs of Colonial and Federal-era plantation houses like Oxon Hill Manor and Riversdale (shown here) were drawn from the best English and Italian precedents. Riversdale was built by the Calvert Family (descendants of the Lords Baltimore) and completed in 1801. Library of Congress
Some speculate that Want Water was built in 1690, but it is more likely that the house was built in 1708 after the property was patented by Colonel Thomas Addison, who also built Oxon Hill Manor. Want Water’s gambrel roof and asymmetrical plan were typical of Colonial Tidewater architecture. Today, the two end walls are all that remain.
A cupola used to ornament the top of this house in the old days, where it was pleasant to sit on summer evenings and watch the sun set over the hills back of Alexandria…with the broad Potomac flowing between. The view is still very fine, for the hill is high, rising from the water’s edge continuously for a mile. At its foot Broad Creek empties into the Potomac, and one can see as far down the river as Mount Vernon when the weather is clear. The Life and Times of Walter Dulany Addison Built by Colonel Thomas Addison and completed in 1711, Oxon Hill Manor ranked among the finest plantation houses of the Chesapeake Tidewater region, rivaling estates like Mount Vernon and Montpelier for its size and splendor. In an era when most colonists lived in one-room cabins with earthen or wood-plank floors, plantation houses like Oxon Hill Manor represented great wealth and power. Inspired by classical English and Italian architecture, these masonry houses boasted numerous rooms and multiple stories, as well as luxurious details including glass-paned windows, marble fireplace mantels, elaborately carved wood, and molded plaster. Built around the main house were kitchens, sheds, workshops, stables, and slave and servant quarters. Interspersed among these structures were lawns, gardens, orchards, carriage paths, and livestock yards.
THE ANATOMY OF COLONIAL-ERA HOUSES
WANT WATER
Examples of Domestic Colonial Architecture
The Life and Times of Walter Dulany Addison
The Architecture of Oxon Hill Manor
Although Oxon Hill Manor was destroyed by fire in 1895, archaeologists and historians have managed to identify many of its key features, including the exact size and location of its cellar foundations. The two images above are among the only surviving views of Oxon Hill Manor. They illustrate other important characteristics of its design: a two-story plan with a central stair hall, columned porch, center gable, massive end-wall chimneys, and a cupola (likely added in the 19th century). Oxon Hill Manor shares a number of common characteristics with other colonial-era houses still standing in Prince George’s County. By studying these houses—several of which were owned or occupied by the Addison Family—we can learn more about the appearance of Oxon Hill and the lives its residents.
The house’s unusual name references an early hand-dug canal that was built on the property. Connecting with Broad Creek and eventually the Potomac River, the canal allowed the property to be used as an inspection station for tobacco shipments.
STYLE: Colonial Tidewater KEY FEATURES: 1 ½ stories, asymmetrical plan, gambrel roof with dormers, wood-frame construction, end-wall chimneys
HARMONY HALL With a fine view overlooking the Potomac River, Harmony Hall was built adjacent to Want Water and bears a striking similarity to Oxon Hill Manor. Likely built in 1768 for Enoch Magruder, a wealthy tobacco merchant and planter, Harmony Hall was later occupied by descendants of Colonel Thomas Addison.
STYLE: Early Georgian KEY FEATURES: 2 - 2 ½ stories, partially symmetrical plan, gabled roof with dormers, masonry construction, endwall chimneys, central stair hall
In 1793-1794, the house was rented by brothers John and Reverend Walter Dulany Addison and their brides. The newlyweds’ happy life in the house was the inspiration for its name.
MONTPELIER MANSION Among the grandest colonial plantations of the Tidewater Region, Montpelier was built in 1783 for the Snowden family, whose estate at one time totaled 27,000 acres. Inspired by the 16th-century Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, Montpelier features a fully articulated, five-part plan, sometimes referred to as a Palladian plan.
STYLE: Georgian/Palladian KEY FEATURES: 2 - 2 ½ stories, fully symmetrical plan, hipped roof, masonry construction, interior chimneys, Palladian-inspired 5-part plan
Montpelier has entertained a number of distinguished guests, including George and Martha Washington and Abigail Adams. Today, it is operated as an historic house museum and is open to the public. All photos and drawings above from the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey
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Alexandria, Virginia from the Maryland side of the Potomac, 1861 Throughout much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Addisons and Berrys leased a portion of their estate to ferry operators, whose ferries connected Prince George’s County with Alexandria at the foot of King Street. In the 1860s, a hotel also operated on the property. Library of Congress
After the Addisons
Oxon Hill in the 19 and 20 Centuries th
th
A HEALING LANDSCAPE
This 1861 map depicts the “Oxen Hill” property being owned by Thomas E. Berry, the third generation of the Berry Family to own the estate.
This 1903 maps shows the former site of Oxon Hill, the adjacent Godding Croft Hospital, and the Old Ferry Landing.
THE BERRY YEARS
steady decline that eventually led to the estate’s neglect and the mansion’s destruction.
Prosperous planter Zachariah Berry owned thousands of acres in Prince George’s County before purchasing Oxon Hill Manor from the Addison Family in 1810. Little is known about his activity on the estate— indeed, it is unlikely that he ever lived there, instead allowing his youngest son Thomas to reside at Oxon Hill Manor and farm the property.
Tobacco, so long the lifeblood of the plantation economy, was by the mid-19th century no longer a viable commercial enterprise. Not only did it exhaust the soil, but it also relied on slavery to grow and harvest the labor-intensive crops. After the Civil War and the end of slavery, many plantation owners sought various means to keep their lands profitable.
Thomas successfully managed Oxon Hill until the death of his father in 1845, at which time he inherited the property. Thomas himself died in 1854 or 1855, and Oxon Hill passed to his son and namesake, Thomas Jr. Like his grandfather, Thomas Jr. owned several estates throughout Prince George’s County and likely did not reside at Oxon Hill Manor, possibly allowing his sons to manage the farm. This period of ownership witnessed the beginning of a
At Oxon Hill, the Berrys experimented with agricultural diversification, growing corn, oats, and sweet and “Irish” potatoes in addition to raising livestock. They also continued the tradition of leasing out portions of their land to tenants, who farmed the land in exchange for rent. Thomas Berry, Jr.’s mental health declined quickly in the 1870s. Following a series of domestic disputes with his wife and sons, questionable business dealings, and legal
hearings over his alleged insanity, Berry died in 1879. To settle a portion of his debts, his sons subdivided the Oxon Hill estate and sold it off in pieces, including the manor house property in 1888. After years of neglect, the mansion was destroyed by fire early one winter morning in 1895.
“Another one of Maryland’s historic mansions has been destroyed. The spacious dwelling house on Oxon Hill, overlooking the Potomac river, in Prince George’s county, opposite Alexandria, caught fire last night, and was left a wreck by the flames at daybreak this morning. This mansion has long been one of the landmarks of the neighborhood of Washington...and with the mansions at Mount Vernon, Belvoir, and Carlisle House, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, made up the noted mansions of the neighborhood in colonial days.” Baltimore Sun, February 7, 1895
OXON HILL MANOR REBORN Sumner and Mathilde Welles purchased 245 acres on the former Oxon Hill estate in 1927. Sumner was a noted diplomat and his wife Mathilde an heiress to the Pennsylvania Railroad fortune. They commissioned Washington architect Jules Henri de Sibour to design a lavish, Neo-Georgian Mansion, surrounded by extensive landscaped gardens. Completed in 1929, the new Oxon Hill Manor became a center of political and social life in the area, much like it was for the Addisons two hundred years earlier. Sumner Welles served as Ambassador to Cuba and as Under Secretary of State to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Welles is credited with promoting the “Good Neighbor” policy towards Latin America and was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations. Oxon Hill Manor was reportedly a favorite spot of Roosevelt, who visited the estate often. It is rumored that Roosevelt arranged a covert meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill there in 1942, although this likely never happened. The Welleses sold the estate in 1952, and it is currently operated by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
Library of Congress
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Map
Godding Croft Farm House 1897
Library of Congress
Martenet’s Map of Prince George’s County
In 1891, the federal government purchased Mount Welby for use by the Government Hospital for the Insane (later St. Elizabeths Hospital) located nearby. St. Elizabeths renamed the property “Godding Croft” and operated it as a therapeutic farm. Patients and their caregivers lived on and farmed the property, a practice
The Godding Croft property was entrusted to the National Park Service in 1959 to protect its natural and cultural resources from encroaching urban development. Since 1967, the National Park Service has operated Oxon Hill Farm as a living history museum and educational farm, teaching children and other visitors about the story of the land, its rich history, and how it has changed over time.
National Park Service
Library of Congress
NOAA Historical Map and Chart Collection
Mount Welby was a small farmstead purchased from the Addisons’ Oxon Hill estate in 1797. Overlooking Oxon Cove and the Potomac River, the farm has been a witness to several important moments in history, including the burning of Washington during the War of 1812.
that was common for many mental institutions at the time. St. Elizabeths also used Godding Croft as a source of food, harvesting sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips and beets as well as planting an orchard. They also raised livestock on the farm, including pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry.
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...Home Life in Colonial Days... Items similar to these bottles were discovered at Oxon Hill in the 1980s. Beginning in the late-19th century, interest in Colonial culture, architecture, and domestic goods experienced a revival.These photographs of bottles and flasks were published in The House Beautiful magazine circa 1898. Library of Congress
Archaeology at Oxon Hill WHAT DOES YOUR TRASH SAY ABOUT YOU? The best stories are not always in the houses, buildings, and gardens. The most revealing information about the people who lived at Oxon Hill was found in the trash!
Building Fragments
Excavations uncovered important architectural features of Oxon Hill Manor, like elaborately decorated wrought iron strap hinges and porch foundations.
Oxon Hill Manor House Foundations The exact location of the former Oxon Hill Manor was discovered in 1980. Over the next decade, excavations uncovered most of the manor house foundations, the location of a circa 1687 earthfast house, as well as several outbuildings and landscape features. Overall, hundreds of archaeological “features” and more than 300,000 artifacts were uncovered from the site. These artifacts, together with field records and reports, represent a significant tool for historians and archaeologists studying the history and culture of 17th-19th century plantation sites.
WHAT TO FIND? “It’s not what you find, it’s what you find out.” Anthropologist David Hurst Thomas Oxon Hill was a place with history; that much archaeologists knew when they set out to excavate. There had been buildings on the property since the 17th century, when Colonel John Addison patented the land. Before Addison, John Smith had recorded meeting Piscataway people who lived in the area. When redevelopment of the Oxon Hill property was considered in the 1980s, archaeology was an important part of the plan. Archaeologists worked closely with the Maryland Historical Trust to answer some basic questions:
What do we think might have been here? John
Addison or an early tenant built a house on the property circa 1687, and his son completed Oxon Hill Manor in 1711. Before that, Piscataway settlements were known to have existed in the Oxon Hill vicinity. Piscataway people were probably attracted to the site for the same reasons Addison was: it was fertile cropland close to the river, with good views of the surrounding area.
What do we know was here? Historic maps and
estate records tell us that several buildings existed on the site, including the brick manor house that burned down in the 1890s. The main house was supported by several other outbuildings or “dependencies” including kitchens, barns, and outhouses. There were also extensive gardens; a family cemetery and mausoleum; and houses
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for the tenants, servants, and slaves who worked on the property.
What do these artifacts tell us? The locations
and types of artifacts found at Oxon Hill tell the stories of the people who lived here. Archaeologists carefully consider other work that has been done in the area and excavations from similar time periods. For example, oyster shells found in a 19th century site might be part of a garden path or driveway, while oyster shells in a Piscataway settlement might be a record of a town or camp site. Certain types of artifacts can also help date a site. The fragment of blue and white stoneware shown at right, with its “GR” crown cartouche, represents King George I or II of England, and therefore can be dated from 1714 to 1760.
Wine Bottles and Seals
A number of 18th-century wine bottles were found at Oxon Hill. The glass seals on the bottles bear the initials of the owner or patron and were a marker of wealth. Thomas Addison’s initials “TA” were found on some of the bottles including “TA” for Thomas Addison.
Just like people today, people in previous centuries dropped pots and broke tools. Often, they disposed of their trash in abandoned wells or outhouses, or sometimes in trash piles called “middens.” Imagine if an archaeologist went through your trash can at home. What would they learn? • What materials did you use for dishes? Tools? Clothes? • Do you cook food at home, or purchase it elsewhere? • How large is your family? • Where do you live? In a city? By a river? What we leave behind tells important stories about how we live. Archaeology is the study of human activity—not just buildings or bones. When archaeologists study a site, they are looking for artifacts or patterns that tell them something about the ways that people lived in and altered their worlds.
Glass- and Stoneware
Expensive pottery and delicately-made glassware indicate that the people who lived in the manor house had wealth and access to trade networks in Europe. Different tools, such as sugar tongs, show not only what people ate but also how they ate it and some of the social rituals of the day. All excavation and artifact photographs courtesy of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, St. Leonard, Maryland
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