Report on Archaeological Investigations in the Eastport Neighborhood of the City of Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, 2001-2004
Creators: name: Palus, Matthew M.
name: Napoli, Janna M.
name: Leone, Mark P.
Publisher: name: Digital Repository at the University of Maryland
Year: 2015
Subjects: Eastport, Maryland
archaeological excavation
Anne Arundel County

description: This report details the archaeological excavations in Eastport, Maryland at eight different
properties during the summers of 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. These include 119 Chester
Avenue (18AP93), 110 Chesapeake Avenue (18AP94), 102 Chesapeake Avenue (18AP100), 201
Chesapeake Avenue (18AP101), 512 Second Street (18AP102), 127 Chester Avenue (18AP103),
520 Third Street (18AP105), and 108 Eastern Avenue (18AP106).
The Eastport community developed over the later 19th and early 20th centuries on the peninsula
immediately to the south of the City of Annapolis, on the eastern shore of the Severn River in
Maryland. This peninsula, known as Horne Point, was the location of a series of farms until the
second half of the nineteenth century. From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth
century, Eastport contained a glass company that was utilized by the City of Annapolis.
Jurisdictionally, Eastport was an independent village under the Anne Arundel County
government until it was annexed into the City of Annapolis in 1951. The county paid for
Eastport to receive some services from Annapolis to compensate for its slowly developing
infrastructure. The Annapolis Gas and Electric Light Company placed its first arc light on the
Spa Creek Bridge in the 1890s, which would mark one of the first such infrastructural
connections between the two communities. This connection multiplied during the early 20th
century.
The Eastport community has not been subjected to systematic archaeological excavations prior to
this study. Archaeological research in the Eastport neighborhood has mainly focused on the
community of craftspeople, watermen, boat-builders, oyster shuckers, crab pickers, merchants
and grocers, builders and tradesmen, engineers and technicians, laborers and domestics that grew
up on the peninsula throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. Traditionally Eastport is
remembered as a community where working meant more than skin color. However, distinctions
were realized between black and white residents, just as they were between old families and
recent settlers, skilled and unskilled labor, home owners living in comfort and poor renters
crowded into narrow frame dwellings. These dimensions of the community have become a part
of its contemporary geography, and they figure strongly in the identity of its residents. The sites
investigated from 2001-2004 suggest this diversity.
The investigations from 2001 to 2004 aimed to increase these archaeological investigations in
order to gain a more thorough understanding of this borough of Annapolis.
The excavations took place as part of the University of Maryland Summer Field School in Urban
Archaeology offered by Archaeology in Annapolis. The first and second seasons of
archaeological excavations took place during the summers of 2001 and 2002, at sites 18AP93
and 18AP94. The third season of archaeological excavations took place during the summer of
2003, at sites 18AP100, 18AP101, 18AP102, and 18AP103. The fourth and final season of
archaeological excavations took place during the summer of 2004, at sites 18AP105 and
18AP106.
As part of these excavations, shovel test pits (STPs) and excavation units were placed across the
front, side, and back yards of the properties. At 18AP93, a total of forty-six STPs were
excavated, along with nine 5’ by 5’square excavation units. At site 18AP94, a total of thirty-two
4
STPs were excavated, along with six 5’ by 5’, one 2.5’ by 2.5’, one 4’ by 5’, and one 6’ by 5’
excavation units. At site 18AP100, a total of one 5’ by 5’ and one 6.8’ by 5’ units were
excavated. At site 18AP101, a total of seven STPs were excavated, along with five 5’ by 5’
square excavation units. At site 18AP102, a total of fourteen STPs were excavated, along with
three 5’ by 5’ square excavation units. At site 18AP103, a total of nine STPs were excavated,
along with two 5’ by 5’ square excavation units. At site 18AP105, a total of twenty-three STPs
were excavated, along with four 5’ by 5’ and one 4’ by 5’ excavation units. At site 18AP106, a
total of forty-four STPs were excavated, along with three 5’ by 5’ square excavation units. Each
unit was excavated to sterile soil. After excavations finished each season, all units were
backfilled and closed.
The excavations within Eastport show that the archaeology of Eastport is intact. The archaeology
of house lots has been made to comment on domestic and work life in Eastport from the time of
its settlement as a planned town just after the close of the American Civil War. The major
contribution that comes from understanding the archaeology of Eastport derives from the work
of Matthew Palus in understanding utility lines and their relationship to road building, paving,
and the extension of gas, water, sewage, electric, and telephone lines into house lots.
Continued excavations have the potential to reveal more information about the changes in the
landscape of Eastport during the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, as well as
information on the lives of the families who occupied these properties.