Other Interests

Scott and I are off to another project area in Calvert County today and tomorrow, so we won't be doing anything on Port Tobacco. I thought, however, that I would share something of what we have been doing with the Archeological Society of the Northern Chesapeake: an investigation of the Octoraro Canal Locks of the Susquehanna Canal (1803 to ca. 1830).

Ann Persson and I prepared a report on the work which we have just submitted to the Archeological Society of Maryland and the Maryland Historical Trust. The report includes a topographic map of the northern lock and its surroundings, a version of which appears below.




In the course of the shovel test survey we identified a prehistoric site, indicated by shovel tests in red (below); that is, those units that produced prehistoric artifacts of as yet unknown vintage. The canal appears to have cut through the site.

We also excavated two shovel tests in the canal lock to determine whether a floor survives, whether of prepared clay, wood, or gravel. We encountered none.


We hope to return to the site, perhaps in the fall, to conduct additional testing within and around the canal and within and around two foundations that appear to date to sometime in the 19th century.

Jim