River and Mountain, War and Peace
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RIVER AND MOUNTAIN, WAR AND PEACE ARCHEOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION STUDY OF CHESAPEAKE & OHIO CANAL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK HANCOCK TO CUMBERLAND (MILE MARKERS 123 TO 184) VOLUME I Final Report PREPARED FOR: National Park Service National Capital Region 1100 Ohio Drive, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20242 PREPARED BY: John Bedell, Jason Shellenhamer, Charles LeeDecker, Stuart Fiedel THE LOUIS BERGER GROUP, INC. 1250 23rd Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20037 May 2011 FOREWORD This is the first of three volumes reporting the results of a three-year archeological survey of the upper 61 miles of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park (C&O Canal Park) carried out for the National Park Service (NPS), National Capital Region, from 2008 through 2010. This study was the third of a series that together made up a nine-year study of the entire park, from Georgetown to Cumberland. Even before the nine-year study began, more than a hundred archeological sites had been recorded in the C&O Canal Park. This number makes it seem as though much work had been done, but this was not really the case. Most of those hundred sites had been recorded by amateur collectors, and little was known about them. Much of the park remained unexplored. Since the park borders the Potomac River, the archeological potential of its 13,000 acres is enormous. To learn more about the archeological resources of the park, and to assist the park in managing those resources, funds were devoted to implement the Systemwide Archeological Inventory Program (SAIP) in the park. The SAIP was developed to address the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act (specifically Sections 106 and 110), Executive Order 11593, and the Archeological Resources Protection Act. The lower 59 miles, from Georgetown to Sandy Hook, were explored in 2002 to 2004 (Fiedel et al. 2005). This segment covered the Piedmont zone, from the falls of the river to the Blue Ridge. The central segment, comprising 64 miles between Sandy Hook and Hancock, spanned the Great Valley. Work on the central segment was carried out in 2005 to 2007 (Bedell et al. 2008). The final, upper segment spans the Appalachian Mountain zone, from Hancock to Cumberland (Figure 1). To address multiple audiences most effectively—the general public, park staff, NPS, review agency staff, and the archeological community—this report is organized in a way that differs from the standard cultural resource study. This volume (I) presents a narrative, designed for the general public, of the prehistory and history of the Potomac in the Appalachians, based on the archival and archeological field investigations; it is intended for the non-technical reader and does not contain specific information about site locations. In order to avoid excessive repetition, this volume treats briefly some topics that were extensively discussed in the reports on the lower and middle segments of the park. Volume II provides a technical description and assessment of the project’s research goals, methods, and findings, and concentrates on a presentation of the prehistoric research. In organization and content, it more closely follows the professional standards of the cultural resource management industry and is intended for distribution only within the professional community. Volume III, also intended for limited distribution, contains additional technical materials and appendices, including artifact inventories, a summary list of radiocarbon dates, and transcripts of the archival documents that are most important to the historical narrative contained in Volume I. i i i FIGURE 1: Map of the C&O Canal Park from Hancock to Cumberland SOURCE: NPS TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME I Chapter Page FOREWORD ......................................................................................................................... i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS................................................................................................. v MOUNTAIN AND RIVER ................................................................................................... 1 HUNTERS AND GATHERERS OF THE MOUNTAIN LANDS ........................................ 5 A Band of People Spread Thinly Across the Land....................................................... 5 The Late Archaic: The Mountains as a Place Between ................................................ 6 Broadspears and Migrations ......................................................................................... 9 Pots and People............................................................................................................. 12 Mound Builders?........................................................................................................... 16 THE COMING OF MAIZE AND VILLAGE LIFE............................................................... 17 The First Farmers.......................................................................................................... 17 The Villagers................................................................................................................. 19 The Moore Village........................................................................................................ 19 Shawnee Oldfields........................................................................................................ 21 REFUGEES COME TO AN EMPTY VALLEY ................................................................... 26 The Luray People Vanish.............................................................................................. 26 The Susquehannocks..................................................................................................... 26 Just Beyond the Reach of History................................................................................. 27 THE SHAWNEE ................................................................................................................... 31 The Shawnee Arrive in the East.................................................................................... 31 The Shawnee at Pequea ................................................................................................ 35 King Opessa’s Town..................................................................................................... 37 Runaway Slaves............................................................................................................ 39 The End of King Opessa’s Town.................................................................................. 41 Searching for King Opessa’s Town .............................................................................. 42 THE COLONIAL FRONTIER .............................................................................................. 44 Frenchmen and Swedes on the Fur-Trading Frontier ................................................... 44 Settlement ..................................................................................................................... 47 Thomas Cresap and Oldtown........................................................................................ 51 Cresap’s Fort................................................................................................................. 58 PEACE AND SOME PROSPERITY..................................................................................... 61 Revolution and Resettlement ........................................................................................ 61 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Chapter Page The Harkins-Boxwell Tenancy..................................................................................... 63 Excavating the Tenancy................................................................................................ 65 THE CANAL ERA ................................................................................................................ 67 Building the Canal ........................................................................................................ 67 The Paw Paw Supervisor’s House Site ........................................................................ 70 THE CIVIL WAR .................................................................................................................. 74 THE LATER YEARS OF THE CANAL ............................................................................... 79 REFERENCES CITED AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................. 82 Table 1: Locations of Early Settlers’ Residences on the 1736 Winslow Map....................... 47 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1 Map of the C&O Canal Park from Hancock to Cumberland..................................... ii 2 The Potomac River Southwest of Hancock ............................................................... 2 3 Archeologists Working on a Broad Terrace of the Potomac, Near Oldtown ............ 3 4 Bifurcate Point, about 8,500 Years Old..................................................................... 6 5 Points from Oldtown.................................................................................................. 7 6 Scraper and Flake Tool .............................................................................................. 8 7 Brewerton Point, about 6,000 Years Old................................................................... 8 8 Savannah River Broadspear, about 4,500 Years Old................................................. 9 9 Bank Cut Unit near Williamsport .............................................................................