History's cluttered closet close to bursting

Region is running out of room to store artifacts from digs

Friday, Dec. 11, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by EMILY BARNES Archaeologists Kelley Walter, left, and Anne Hayward check out some artifacts that are temporarily stored in the historic Burch House on the campus of the Port Tobacco Courthouse off Chapel Point Road. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Southern Maryland is steeped in history, so much so that local archaeologists, curators and researchers say they are rapidly running out of room to preserve and store the millions of artifacts that have been unearthed over the last several decades.

There's no place to store or display the thousands of artifacts that archaeologists are uncovering during digs in the Village of Port Tobacco. The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory in Calvert, as well as Anne Arundel Hall at St. Mary's College of Maryland, are overflowing with millions of artifacts that require the expansion of both facilities.

Local archaeologists and historians insist it's a race against time to preserve, document and store these treasures for future generations to study and enjoy.

Treasures need a home

Charles County has awakened from a long sleep when it comes to archaeology.

The first major archaeological project began a couple of years ago in Port Tobacco, a once thriving seaport town that was the county seat until the late 19th century.

So far, about 125,000 prehistoric American Indian and Colonial artifacts, including the foundations of structures, bricks, nails, bottles, window glass, bones and fish scales have been unearthed during the project, said James Gibb of Gibb Archaeological Consulting in Annapolis. The Port Tobacco project, launched in 2007 with a $9,270 Maryland Historical Trust grant, is sponsored by the Archaeological Society of Maryland and the Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco.

Right now, Gibb is storing the artifacts in boxes stacked in the historic Burch House in the village — not an ideal environment for fragile treasures that were buried for centuries, Gibb said.

"The artifacts don't have a home, a museum dedicated to the history and prehistory of Charles County," he said. "Artifacts are used to tell people about our history. A lot of important issues today can be discussed using parallels from the past. A museum could be very helpful in doing that."

The county has no plans to build a facility or rehabilitate a building to house the artifacts, Gibb said, adding if the money were available he would like to renovate Stagg Hall, a home built around 1740.

"Charles County is 50 years behind the times," he said. "It's embarrassing. I would like to see a commitment from the county to establish a Charles County museum that is professionally run and fully staffed."

But Donna Dudley, Charles County's chief of tourism, said funding for such a venture is just not available, especially during these rough economic times. "Money is always a problem," she said. "How do you allocate money for this type of project with limited resources?"

The future trend for heritage tourism is to provide history buffs with more interactive exhibits and displays rather than artifacts and documents lined up in rows behind glass, Dudley said.

"Young people learn differently now," she said. "They don't have an affinity for museums unless it's cutting edge. Kids learn fast and they're very visual. They're not going to stand still and read a sign on an exhibit. We've got to find new ways to educate people."

Dudley said displaying treasures from the past in places where the public normally goes to do business or seek entertainment is the way to teach them about local history. Currently, the county government building in La Plata has such a display that highlights artifacts found at the Moore's Lodge site near La Plata — the location of the county's first courthouse.

"That exhibit is a grand idea," she said. "Rather than thinking about a museum why not display artifacts where people are already?"

Julia King, an associate professor of anthropology at St. Mary's College of Maryland, is assisting in the Moore's Lodge project. The more than 2,000 artifacts unearthed so far are being stored at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation lab in St. Leonard. "It would be great if Charles County could build a storage facility, but why bother?" King said. "There's the MAC lab. Why not use it?"

Gibb said the lab is running out of room and an expansion of the facility is still years away. "The MAC lab is filling up," he said. "They've got to expand the facility or there will be no place to put additional artifacts."

Gibb said so far there are 50 boxes of artifacts from the Port Tobacco dig stored at the Burch House. "It's not an ideal facility; there's no lab there," he said. "But it's climate controlled and there's a lock on the door."

Stagg Hall "would be a good step toward developing a modern museum," he said. "We've got to start somewhere. Port Tobacco is an extraordinary site with lots of stories to tell, but there's no place to tell those stories."

The African American Heritage Society of Charles County in La Plata might be able to help Gibb out a bit once the nonprofit organization's $400,000 renovation of the Heritage House Museum is completed next year, said its president, Mary Boyd.

The museum opened in 1999 in a split-level home near Stagecoach Crossing Road in La Plata to house an extensive collection of African-American artifacts that once belonged to the late William A. Diggs. The pieces and documents reflect the struggle of the slaves who lived in Charles County and include handmade tools, dolls, furniture, clothing and kitchen utensils.

Boyd said state bond funding and a lot of donations are helping make the renovation possible.

"Charles County has such a rich history. It should be preserved," she said, adding that the group wants to work with other historical organizations such as the Charles County Historical Society to bring the county's history alive.

"I'm hoping that once the museum opens again we can get the community together and work closely with different groups," she said. "The problem is we're dealing with cultural differences but it's all related. There's history here and our young people need to learn about it."

Running out of space

The MAC lab, which opened in 1998 in the 560-acre Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum, stores an estimated 8 million to 10 million artifacts from 3,000 archaeological sites in Maryland, said Patricia Samford, the lab's director. The lab serves as a clearinghouse for archaeological collections recovered from land and underwater sites and is used as the state facility for research, conservation and storage of artifacts, she said.

The park, which is part of the Maryland Historical Trust, contains more than 70 archaeological sites with artifacts from 9,000 years ago through the Colonial period, including the location of the 1814 Battle of St. Leonard Creek, the largest Navy engagement in Maryland history.

Samford said there are plans to expand. "We can count on getting about 300 boxes a year of new artifacts," she said. "When we built the lab it had a 15-year capacity. We're going to reach that capacity by 2013."

The expansion project will add 3,100 square feet to the 38,000-square-foot lab, Samford said. The third floor of the building, which contains 2,500 square feet will also be fixed up to provide more space.

"We started filling up right after we opened," said Rebecca Morehouse, the lab's curator for state collections. "Objects need to be kept in a climate-controlled environment to help slow down deterioration. … We need to have enough space so the staff can get to the collections and enter them into a database so that researchers can use them. What's the point of digging all of this stuff up and putting it into a closet where people can't access it?"

Once artifacts are cleaned and documented, they are stored in plastic bags that are labeled and placed in boxes on shelves, Samford said.

"Archaeology provides information about the kind of folks who are not mentioned in historical documents," she said, adding that written information about American Indians, African-Americans and women is in short supply. "One of the strengths of archaeology is we can get to those folks. There are reasons to keep all of this stuff. We're always learning about the past."

"Archaeological collections are really only as good as the records that go along with them," Morehouse said. "It's just as important to preserve paper records as it is to preserve the artifacts themselves. Those records are what really give us information about a site."

Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons is also in need of more storage space, said Stephen Godfrey, the facility's curator of paleontology. The museum, which opened in 1970, houses fossils mainly from Calvert Cliffs as well as a large collection of maritime artifacts.

"We're doing OK, but if we continue to collect at the rate that we're collecting, we'll run out of space eventually," Godfrey said. "Whenever you ask an institution if they need more space, the answer will always be yes."

‘Busting out of our seams'

Anne Arundel Hall, which contains an archaeological lab in St. Mary's City — Maryland's first capital — is also cramped for space. Between 5 million and 7 million artifacts clog the facility's basement, said Silas Hurry, curator of collections and archaeological lab director for the department of research and collections in the historic city.

"We're filling up the entire basement," he said. "It's pretty full. We're kind of busting out of our seams."

An estimated $33.8 million project is planned to solve the storage problem, Hurry said. He said the Maryland Heritage Project, a joint venture between St. Mary's College of Maryland and the city, includes the construction of a new visitors center and a facility that will replace Anne Arundel Hall. The facility will hold archaeological curation facilities and academic space for the college's anthropology, museum studies and language and cultures programs, he said.

The lab will be connected with two college buildings on the second floor that will offer offices and classrooms, Hurry said. The three buildings will measure about 34,000 square feet.

"We definitely need more space," he said. "We're able to contain the artifacts in a good environment so far, but we keep digging up more stuff. Maintaining everything in good condition is an ongoing responsibility so that it will be there to study in the future. If we don't keep maintaining a good environment for the artifacts, we always risk the chance of losing information."

Hurry said a lack of space to store artifacts is not just a problem in Maryland.

"The collection, storage and study of artifacts [is] almost reaching a crisis situation in many states," he added. "Some states won't even accept collections because their facilities are filled up. It's a big challenge."

Full up on farm life

John K. Parlett Jr. can tell a tale or two about the difficulty of owning way too many historical artifacts. There's room to store the farm life collection at the Parlett family's 130-acre farm in New Market, but it's time to pass it along to a worthy organization or government entity to preserve and display it.

So far that effort has been fruitless, he said.

"I've spend the last 14 months or so meeting and talking about it," he said. "There aren't any federal or state grants available to help someone acquire the collection, and there's no private groups that can afford to purchase it. I anticipate that the collection will be dismantled and the farm will be sold."

There are at least 15,000 pieces in the collection that includes everything from dozens of vintage John Deere tractors, liquor stills and blacksmithing and tobacco production equipment to antique bathtubs, seed cleaners, tools, sleighs, sleds, buggies and horse-drawn road graders, Parlett said.

For 12 years through this fall, the collection was open to the public during the Southern Maryland Farm-Life Festival, the proceeds from which were donated to Christmas in April in St. Mary's County.

Elected officials from Southern Maryland, Smithsonian Institution officials and state and federal groups have been working with the family to try to come up with a solution to the problem, Parlett said, adding that he hates the thought of dismantling the collection.

Parlett's father, the late John K. Parlett Sr., began the collection in the 1950s and he amassed most of the pieces in the 1980s, Parlett said. His mother, 72-year-old Catherine Ann Parlett, simply cannot deal with the huge collection since her husband's death in 2005, he said.

"We appreciate all of the effort that people have put into helping us with this, but because of the hard economic times the funding for something like this just isn't practicable," he said. "This is far too important a collection to be dismantled, but no one can identify a funding source to help an organization acquire it."

nmcconaty@somdnews.com