THE PORT TOBACCO ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT: AN INTRODUCTION
Prepared by James G. Gibb, PhD, Co-Director
Introduction
A cloud of volcanic ash and gases, a towering wave, a brush fire racing across the land: typical responses to these and other catastrophes include huddling and running like hell. Neither response is rational. They are instinctual. In the face of many unexpected dangers, there are no rational responses. But what does a community do when it sees impending disaster and, possibly, experiences social, economic, and political dislocation incrementally over years or even decades as the change looms larger and darker? How do rational beings confront adversity, especially of their own making? Archaeologists might bring this question to the past, and the answers to the present and future.
The town of Port Tobacco, established at the head of navigation of the river of that same name, a tributary of the Potomac River, faced environmental changes that jeopardized its survival as a vibrant commercial node in 18th- and 19th-century Chesapeake society. Filling of the riverbed with eroding topsoil from neighboring tobacco farms was evident to the townspeople as early as the middle of the 18th century. By the middle of the following century, Port Tobacco—onetime anchorage for oceangoing vessels—was landlocked. In 1895, the community lost its battle of some 20 years and the Charles County seat was moved to nearby La Plata. Parishioners even dismantled the Episcopal church, stone by stone, and rebuilt it next to the new courthouse three miles distant. Port Tobacco is now a sparsely occupied hamlet (15 residents according to the 2000 census) on a scenic byway for which a management plan is under development. Port Tobacco is part of a Maryland designated Heritage Area.
What could Port Tobaccoans have done to avert disaster? What did they do and when? These are the questions that guide the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project and its sponsors: The Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco, the Maryland Historical Trust, the Archeological Society of Maryland, the Charles County Commissioners, and Southern Maryland Resource Conservation & Development Board, Inc. The answers, and the search for those answers, will fuel development of this important Maryland site and National Register of Historic Places District. Long-range plans are ambitious, but they aim to preserve and enhance this bucolic, historic destination in the midst of a rapidly growing urban area. This prospectus paints in broad strokes the development of Port Tobacco as a heritage tourism hub in Southern Maryland (a role proposed in the Southern Maryland Heritage Area Plan) and the role that historical archaeology, informed by historical ecology, will play in the process.
Background
The Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco, Inc., celebrated its sixtieth anniversary in 2007. Its founders established the organization with the goal of restoring the town to some semblance of its late 19th-century appearance; viz., the appearance of the town core when it was mapped in 1888, with an uncertain interest in the town’s early Colonial (ca. 1700) history, some of which Jean B. Lee expertly documented in her book, The Price of Nationhood. The Society had some remarkable successes in the preservation of three remaining 18th-century dwellings and the reconstruction, with a $250,000 grant from the State of Maryland in 1969/70, of the last courthouse (1819-1892). The courthouse reconstruction inspired archaeological research at the courthouse site, the site of the St. Charles Hotel, and the village green in the late 1960s through mid-1970s by avocational archaeologists with some input from the nascent professional community. Since the 1970s, the pace of research has slowed and efforts at restoration and reconstruction have virtually halted with few exceptions.
In 2008, Charles County will celebrate its 350th anniversary. Concomitantly, there is a fast-paced effort to design and establish a scenic byway through Charles and St. Mary’s counties, with Port Tobacco comprising one of several nodes or principal destinations on the route. A joint effort by Charles County, the Maryland Historical Trust, and the Society to restore the Burch House—one of the three surviving 18th-century buildings in town—has provided the town and restoration project with some community profile and a reason to introduce archaeological research. Gibb Archaeological Consulting (GAC) has taken the Burch House testing program of 2006 (required by the Maryland Historical Trust’s easement committee) and, with a small grant from the Trust—administered through the Archeological Society of Maryland—and matching funds and in-kind contributions from GAC and local volunteers, expanded the investigation into a comprehensive survey of the town lands. Dr. April M. Beisaw from Binghamton University (State University of New York) serves as the partially remunerated co-director, assisted by GAC staffers and two partially compensated assistants.
Project goals
The intents of the archaeological research are several:
1. Reawaken interest in Port Tobacco as one of Maryland’s premier historic sites;
2. Establish the historical significance of the various town land parcels, virtually all of which remain in private hands;
3. Use the determinations of historic significance to leverage money for, and justify, the acquisition of those parcels for the establishment of a historical park;
4. Provide the research questions and material evidence necessary for the ongoing interpretation of the site; and
5. Attract visitors, participants, and partners in a long-term program of research and development of this heritage tourism destination, and to establish this destination as a hub or nexus for exploring surrounding historic sites and landscapes.
Project methods
The Port Tobacco Archaeological Project team and the Archeological Society of Maryland, with considerable logistical assistance from the Charles County Commissioners, and Southern Maryland Resource Conservation & Development Board, Inc., the Maryland Historical Trust, and the Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco, is undertaking intensive archaeological survey of the town lands. The plan is to complete the comprehensive survey of as many parcels as the team can gain permission to enter, and in the process generate local and statewide enthusiasm for the project. We hope to secure sufficient funding to establish a full time director of the project at Port Tobacco who can continue to raise funds, coordinate research, and assist Charles County and the Society in acquiring and developing the resources of the town.
