News
New Findings from the 1634 Fort where Maryland Began
Henry M. Miller
For many years, the location and nature of the fort built by the Ark and Dove immigrants was a mystery. Finally in 2016, ground penetrating radar (GPR) led to its discovery. Under the direction of the current Director of Research Travis Parno and Site Director Jessica Edwards, a team has been exploring this site. Leonard Calvert described the fort as a palisade 120 yards square with four flankers (also known as bastions). However, the new data shows that it was actually in the shape of a rectangle about 105 yards on one side and 60 yards on the other, enclosing a space of about 1.25 acres. One large bastion clearly stood out in the GPR but others were not obvious. Subsequent excavations have located another concealed by trees and the two others, if they exist, must await further excavation. The walls were indeed palisades comprised of a narrow three-foot-deep trench into which were placed closely spaced vertical split rails. They may have extended 10 to 12 feet above ground, creating a substantial barrier to any attackers. The image to the right shows the trench being excavated with the palisade impressions seen at the bottom.


Several hundred people lived in the fort for about 3 years so one goal is to find the “Cottages” they live in. The GPR has not provided good evidence for their locations thus far, but it did reveal one building. In the northeast portion of the fort, a possible cellar and post holes of a large structure were suggested and excavators have now confirmed it. This is an aerial photograph of the structure with the cellar being the dark gray/black area at the top.
It has been a focus of work over the past four digging seasons. We discovered that this building was constructed on wooden posts set into the ground about three feet. Although the wood has long since decayed, archaeologists can read the soil to locate the original hole and the organic rich mold where the post had stood. Slowly week after week and month after month, more traces of this structure were uncovered and mapped. The preliminary plan of the posts, called features in archaeology, may be seen in this figure.

Called earthfast architecture because it is supported by timbers firmly set into the earth, this structure was roughly 43 feet long and 22 feet wide, divided into three bays. Off the north end of the building was a large cellar. What is curious is that the structure was not built with the precision most earthfast structures display. As you can see, the walls are not equal in size and the south corner of the west wall is over two feet farther south than the east wall corner. Hence, it can be concluded that the structure was not built totally symmetrically and is a slight parallelogram. This is confirmed by the diagonal measures. From the southwest corner to the northeast corner is 49.6 ft. but only 46.5 from the southeast to northwest. It was not built with either of the two standard methods of earthfast construction widely employed in the 17th-century Chesapeake. Given the hole spacing and varied hole shapes, it seems the builders set each post individually and not as pre assembled frames which was typical.
Another curious feature of this building is the presence of large central posts on each gable and another in the center of the building. These suggest that the structure featured an architectural element known as a summer beam. In many 15th- to 17th-century British structures, this large principal timber is found. They commonly run down the center of the building and carry the weight of the floors above them. Summer beams can also act as the spine of the structure, tying the sides, back, and front of a building’s entire frame together to keep the walls from spreading apart. Here is a surviving summer beam from the 17th century in England.
Another notable feature is that the north bay was divided into two rooms. Closely spaced studs whose feet were set in the ground defined these rooms, suggesting they were intended to be secure and lockable. They may have served as the armory with weapons, and a magazine for powder and shot. Excavators found numerous pieces of lead shot in and around these rooms.

At the north end just outside the building was a deep and large cellar. It is not precisely aligned with the gable but quite close and probably covered with a shed roof coming off the north end of the structure. Excavation of just one quarter of this cellar has produced a very impressive array of artifacts including body armor. This image is an x-ray of the tasset or skirt of 17th-century armor. Its two attachment hinges that tied it to the breast plate are seen at the top and the lower section has rivets in the shape of three hearts. This was likely brought aboard the Ark.
Other artifacts include beautiful blue and white Delft ware vessels, some from the Netherlands, and the finest example of elegant Northern Italian Slipware ever found in Maryland. It was made in the area around Pisa.

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Other items from the cellar and around the building are large numbers of lead shot of varied calibers, a nearly complete lock from a snaphaunce musket, a bandolier cap, three cannon balls, bottle glass, many white clay tobacco pipes from England and the Netherlands, metal items and quantities of bone, especially from deer and the once abundant Sheephead fish, along with some pig and cattle bones.
Given all this new information, it is essential to determine what this structure was. Historical documents do tell us that two special buildings stood within the fort. One was a guardhouse and the other a storehouse. They were built in the earliest weeks of settlement. A key factor in identifying the function of buildings is heating. All structures used as lodgings have some type of heating facility for both warmth and cooking. The guard house where soldiers were on duty likely had some type of heating as well. Despite careful searching, no evidence of any facility for fire is present within this structure, something that was common for period storehouses.
Furthermore, timber storehouses found elsewhere in English America tend to have closely spaced studs for secure storage. Portions of the walls of this building have such studs, with the most robust forming the two interior rooms. Taken together, the evidence points to this structure being the storehouse of 1634. While it had a dirt ground floor, the upper part, perhaps created with story and a half construction, was planked, providing a way for barrels of grain and other provisions to be kept dry and away from rodents. The cellar would have served to store beverages, keeping them from freezing and the barrels bursting in the winter.
In the directions for potential settlers, Lord Baltimore requested that each of the Ark and Dove passengers bring one years’ worth of provisions. Safely storing such a large amount of food and drink for 150 to 200 people would have required a considerable space and would have been a matter of urgency in the spring of 1634, since the Ark was scheduled to return to England. The total storage space of the ground and upper floor would have been over 1800 square feet. The cellar added another 200 square feet of subterranean storage.
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Therefore, preliminary analysis points to this being the first major building constructed by the Maryland settlers. These newly arrived immigrants clearly understood that timber construction was the most expedient way in the forest-covered setting of the Chesapeake. Lord Baltimore had spent considerable effort learning from the Virginia experiences. And while the artisans clearly had a sound knowledge of housewrighting and carpentry, they apparently did not yet have a keen understanding of earthfast construction. This ancient medieval method began being used again in Virginia, but the development of the methodology was still very much in progress in 1634. Certainly, the irregularities in the walls and bays implies a less than complete sense of how to erect structures fully supported by wooden posts. Being newly arrived in an unfamiliar environment, this should not be a surprise. Evidence from other sites shows that this knowledge was gradually acquired and led to a Chesapeake tradition of earthfast architecture that would become the mainstay for most 17th-century immigrant housing and agriculture.
This building is highly significant because it represents the very beginning point of the architectural heritage of colonial Maryland. As work progresses, many more discoveries and insights will come and tell us more about what the Ark and Dove passengers experienced and did as they worked to establish the new society named Maryland.
September 9th, 2024