Tag: Battle of Baltimore

[We Dig Hampstead Hill] School groups, mysterious drain pipes and a musket ball

As rain today and tomorrow keeps our We Dig Hampstead Hill project team inside (catching up on all of the less glamorous paperwork!), we’re excited to share a few results from our second successful week in the field, what archeologist Greg Katz says is, “Good stuff, and more good stuff to come!”

Last week, we welcomed five school groups for a hands-on field trip at Hampstead Hill including students from Thomas Johnson Middle School, Morrell Park Middle School, Patterson Park Public Charter School, and Hampstead Hill Academy. Special thanks to our school outreach coordinator Theresa Donnelly for supporting these visits and to Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (whose “Mystery Objects” learning activity has been a huge hit with these young archeologists-in-training).

 

We also made great progress in locating the remains of the defensive earthworks and finding some exciting artifacts that connect us to the people who camped along that line during the fall of 1814. Fieldwork Director Greg Katz has shared his perspective on the second week of the project:

2014-04-25 15.20.37We had strong volunteer support, and we were able to take our test units (started last week) down to 3-4 feet below surface into some very interesting nineteenth-century deposits. We found the eastern and western edges of the tavern structure, as well as the base of the earthen cellar. We recovered lots of interesting artifacts from the tavern excavations, including a large assortment of buttons and ceramic wares, and smaller amounts of bottle fragments and other domestic items. One of my favorite finds from this area is a Goodyear rubber button, probably produced in the 1850s, when the former tavern was home to the Keeper of Patterson Park. Nothing military in nature was found in the tavern structure, which was unexpected.

Some military items did turn up in the test units north of the Observatory, including a gunflint and a musket ball. By the close of the week we were fairly confident that we were near the base of the 1814 fortification ditch in the excavations both north and south of the Observatory.

2014-04-23 12.31.14The testing south of the Observatory found some very interesting layers of soil and elements of an older drain system possibly dating to the nineteenth century. A relatively shallow ditch, suggestive of the 1814 fortification ditch, was found approximately 1.5 feet below the ground surface. At the base of the ditch was a small brick storm drain. Approximately two feet lower we encountered another ditch that we think is the actual trench from the 1814 earthworks. Our current theory is that the upper ditch is a historical reenactment of sorts – that at some point in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries a ditch was dug to recreate the historic rampart. The drain system may have been installed to keep the recreated ditch from filling with water. This may be an example of how each generation of Baltimoreans comes to learn the city’s history, and rediscovers and reinterprets the past. Good stuff, and more good stuff to come!

[We Dig Hampstead Hill] First week finds in Patterson Park fieldwork

Our project team spent their first week following up on the remote-sensing study conducted by Dr. Tim Horsley last month. Tim’s study gave us two big leads: evidence of the old fortification ditch and evidence of a building and cellar we believe may be Jacob Loudenslager’s tavern and the field headquarters during the Battle of Baltimore.

To learn more about these features, the team opened three trenches, including one at the tavern site and two to test the old fortification ditch. Fieldwork Director Greg Katz shared his reflections on the first week in the field:

The testing of the tavern area has gone very well. We found the remains of what we think is a brick foundation on the very first day of the investigation. So far, the search for the trench has been less successful. While we located signs of the original fortification in the southern trench, we also found a drain that looks like a later feature (likely installed between 1827 and the 1853 when the area was turned into a public park).

According to the remote sensing survey, the northern ditch was supposed to be buried just over 3 feet below ground but we have not yet found anything that’s clearly the fortification yet so we have to go a little bit deeper still. I’m excited that so much of the 19th century landscape seems to still be intact but we still have a lot of work to do and it’s been taking a long time to get the information that we have so far so we have to try to be very careful from here going out strategic in terms of what amount what testing were going to be able to accomplish.

[We Dig Hampstead Hill] Field excavation finds a brick foundation and a French gunflint

Today in Patterson Park, volunteers working with Jason Shellenhamer, Ryun Papson, and archeologist Emily Walter uncovered a brick foundation for the structure identified in our earlier remote sensing survey. With multiple units open, we’ve also started to recover a number of intriguing artifacts including coins, ceramics and even a French gunflint that could potentially have been used with a French rifle during the War of 1812.

Thanks to Emily for capturing a shot of the gunflint on Instagram right after it came out of the ground! Thanks also to Johns Hopkins and Ryun for sharing a few more photos of our second day of field excavations below.

Defender’s Day Run & Ride! Two fun and athletic tours to remember the War of 1812 in September

Fort McHenry Bombardment, 1814When Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry as a captive aboard a British ship, he was one of thousands of Baltimoreans who waited anxiously through the night uncertain if the city would fall before the British attack. Baltimore’s endurance through the battle is remembered still today in the Star-Spangled Banner and in Maryland’s annual observance of Defender’s Day.

On our second annual Baltimore by Bike Defender’s Day Ride and our first ever heritage running tour, we’ll explore the people and places of Baltimore touched by that night in 1814. Enslaved men worked on the massive fortifications that still stand in today’s Patterson Park. Recently arrived German immigrants heard the warning bells ring out from Old Otterbein Church on the news of the British approach. An enterprising seamstress on Pratt Street sewed the famous flag that became our nation’s Star-Spangled Banner. Follow us beyond the ramparts of Fort McHenry and join our Defender’s Day Ride & Run past the landmarks that tell the story of how the city lived and fought through the Battle of Baltimore and the War of 1812.

Defender’s Day Ride!

Sunday, September 8, 2013 9:00 am to 11:30 am
Fort McHenry National Monument & Historic Shrine
2400 East Fort Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21230
Register – $10 for members, $15 for non-members

Love to learn history on two wheels? Ride along with local scholar and cyclist Dr. Kate Drabinksi on our 10-mile route of quiet streets and mixed-used paths from Fort McHenry to Hampstead Hill in Patterson Park and back again

Defender’s Day Run!

Sunday, September 8, 2013 9:00 am to 10:30 am
Fort McHenry National Monument & Historic Shrine
2400 East Fort Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21230
Register – $10 for members, $15 for non-members 

Update: The Defender’s Day Run has been cancelled! If you are interested in learning more about future heritage running tours, please contact Eli Pousson at pousson@baltimoreheritage.org.

At a moderate pace of a 10 minute mile, our guide Dustin Meeker will take us around Baltimore’s once fortified harbor up to the Battle Monument and back to Fort McHenry on an energetic 10K tour. Dustin is doubly prepared for the task as a former ranger at Fort McHenry and a competitive distance runner.