Historic Cabin Excavated in Maryland

DORCHESTER COUNTY, MARYLAND—According to a Baltimore Sun report, state archaeologist Julie Schablitsky and a team of researchers recovered a pill bottle, a whetstone, broken tea cups, buttons, combs, crab claws, chicken bones, and toy parts from beneath the floorboards of a cabin behind the historic Caile-Bayly House, which was built in the 1740s in Maryland’s Eastern Shore region. Schablitsky said the whetstone was found in the cabin’s southwest corner, which correlates with a West African spiritual practice intended to protect a home from lightning strikes. Researchers have also found a newspaper ad dating to 1857 that requests the return of Lizzie Ambie, who was enslaved by Alexander Bayly. Researchers think Ambie and others may have lived in the cabin. DNA testing of tobacco pipestems from the site could offer more information about who lived there. To read more about the archaeology of enslaved people in Maryland, go to "Belvoir's Legacy."