St. John’s Freehold

Abstract

The first seventeenth-century site excavated by Historic St. Mary’s City was St. John’s Plantation, established in 1638. In this chapter, evidence of the four structures uncovered at the site is presented. These include a well-built hall-and-parlor home based upon East Anglian architecture, and three subsequent earthfast buildings. One was a store converted into a servant’s quarter and then a kitchen, another was built as a merchant’s storehouse which became a lodging, and the third was a poultry house constructed in a Dutch style. Analysis of animal bones from the site is also presented. Bones from the first decades of occupation are compared with those from later decades, revealing a dramatic shift in the diet of the inhabitants over time. Although domestic cattle and swine were significant throughout, wild species especially deer and fish had a prominent place in the early diet. By the late 1600s, domestic meats, especially beef, predominated. This provided the first detailed archaeological insights about the diet from the seventeenth-century Chesapeake.