“Hi! I am Abby Shackelford. I am a senior at Catonsville High School, and I plan to major in archaeological studies or anthropology in college. Most recently, I have been working at Arden, a mid-19th century plantation. We have been digging shovel test pits around abandoned former slave quarters, which were later converted into a tenement. I hope to learn more about collections storage and artifact conservation this summer.”
Thanks, Abby, for spending your summer with us! We appreciate your hard work in the lab and field.
Abby (C) with fellow interns Kaitlin (L) and Julia (R)
Your support can help us provide internships to the next generation of archaeology and historic preservation professionals! If you are able, please consider making a tax-deductible internship donation to the Lost Towns Project today. Every contribution, no matter the size, makes a big difference in preserving local history. Thank you!
Contributed by Lost Towns Project summer intern Tyler Wilson
This summer, I worked on a project to research, excavate, and document 19th-century Black households in Anne Arundel County, Maryland to create a more inclusive history. These households were inhabited by both enslaved and free African Americans before and after emancipation. As an intern on this project, I was tasked with updating the Anne Arundel County cemetery database and completing inventory forms while assisting in both the lab and fieldwork for the project. The data that was gained from this project is significant because it gives historic value and acknowledgment to a community that was often ignored or forgotten about. The central site for the summer took place at the Arden Tenant House (18AN609) where a lot of artifacts and data were collected.
18AN609: The Arden Tenant House
Arden Tenant House, located on old Harwood Road in Harwood, Maryland, was a property owned by Dr. James Murray. The main house on the property is a rare Louisiana-style plantation house, and this is where Dr. Murray would have lived. After emancipation, black tenant farmers lived in the tenant house a short distance away. At the tenant house, most artifacts were found through shovel test pits dug by the interns, and through surface finds. The surface finds and shovel test pits were organized and flagged on a digital grid system. Due to the property being occupied for decades, there were countless pieces of ceramics, glass bottles, and other artifacts found everywhere, mostly on the surface. Along with this, two professional archeologists excavated the floor within the house where countless more artifacts such as stockings, ceramics, and even animal bone were found. If we had more time, the site would have garnered much more data.
Tyler excavating at the Arden Tenant House
The two weeks spent at Arden were memorable to me because it was the first time I was able to do fieldwork in the United States. The only time I had ever worked in the field was at my field school which took place in Hertfordshire, England. So, being able to do archeology in the state I’m from while also finding countless artifacts was very memorable. Arden was also such an amazing site due to the sheer number of artifacts that could be found on the property.
Tyler Wilson is one of our two funded interns this year! Your support can help us provide internships to the next generation of archaeology and historic preservation professionals. If you are able, please consider making a tax-deductible internship donation to the Lost Towns Project today. Every contribution, no matter the size, makes a big difference in preserving local history. Thank you!
TWO graduate students, FIVE undergrads, ONE high schooler, and ONE recent grad walk into an archaeology lab…
Wait–it’s not a joke:
This is our amazing crew of 2022 interns and they are keeping the Lost Towns Project and Anne Arundel County’s Preservation Stewardship Program BUSY this summer!
Our Interns hail from educational institutions across Maryland, as well as the Midwest, New England, and the UK, and are focusing on a variety of archaeology, preservation and heritage research. Projects range from learning the basics of field and lab methods, documenting historic cemeteries, and studying the impacts of climate change on historic sites, to a study of the the archaeology of black spaces on plantation landscapes, zooarchaeology (the study of animal bones), and analyzing artifacts from the Ogle Research Collection to explore interactions between Native American groups in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic over 2,000 years ago. Stay tuned for their blog posts as they highlight their research projects.
Special thanks to funding from Maryland Humanities and their SHARP Recovery Grants Fund1, matched by generous donations by our supporters. This funding has allowed the Lost Towns Project offer two interns financial stipends for the first time ever. Offering financial support has raised the quality and commitment of our intern pool, and undoubtedly helped with gas expenses!
We would love to offer funding for three interns next summer. If you are able to help us support the rising stars in the fields of archaeology and historic preservation, please consider making an internship donation to the Lost Towns Project today. (LTP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit–so it’s tax deductible!) History will thank you!
The narrative and existing documentation has yet to adequately address the full history of the site, and archaeology promises to tell us about both the freedman and enslaved workers who lived and worked here. This work is the first foray into telling a broader, more inclusive story about the Whitehall Plantation.
In 1848, Cinderella Brogden was “about 22 to 24 years old, pleasant when spoken to, of a light yellow complexion, and about 4’6″ tall.” She lived at Belvoir Plantation in Crownsville, Maryland, in a comfortable, well-appointed stone dwelling house with a central fireplace, brick floors and four rooms, with her mother Lydia, and her siblings Basil, John Henry, Lucinda, and Eliza. She had recently married Abraham Brogden, a well-respected laborer whose family had lived in Anne Arundel County for generations. Abraham grew up in the Millersville area, near the head of the Severn River and was likely familiar with Cinderella and her family living on a nearby farm. In 1848, he was 27 years old, employed by Mr. James Curly at his farm in the north of Anne Arundel County, and lived in Ward 10 of Baltimore City.
But here is where the fairytale stops.
George F. Worthington, an ordained protestant priest, inherited the Belvoir Plantation along present day Generals Highway, from his father in 1837. He also inherited 13 enslaved workers, including Lydia and her children, Basil, Cinderella, John Henry, Lucinda, and Eliza. Cinderella was likely born at Belvoir, and for her 24 years, had at least enjoyed a family structure and the support network of her siblings. Despite her enslaved status, she was allowed to marry, and wed a well-respected freedman named Abraham Brogden.
Shortly before Christmas of 1848, Cinderella received word that she “was about to be sold [out of state] under execution for her masters debts,” a reality that struck fear and dread, and promised to tear apart her life and family. On the evening of Thursday December 21st, Cinderella gathered a few of her personal belongings and clothes, bid her family goodbye, and fled to Baltimore City with the support of her husband Abraham.
While Worthington was not living at Belvoir, his Overseer Edward H Brown wasted no time in posting a runaway slave advertisement to the Baltimore Sun offerring $75 for her arrest or $100 if taken out of State. This is a chilling caveat to the ad, as Brown’s acknowledgement that she may escape “out of the state” suggests that Cinderella knew the gravity of her fate, and was trying to get as far away as possible to gain her freedom.
This advertisement was posted in the Baltimore Sun on December 23rd 1848, though by the time it was published, she and her husband Abraham had already been apprehended by the authorities. Admitted to a Baltimore jail on Dec 22nd, Cinderella remained incarcerated for 8 days, until ultimately being returned to her ‘owner’, Mr. Worthington. As she and her family had feared, upon her return to Worthington’s custody, she was quickly sold out of state.
For Abraham’s effort to save his wife, he was tried and found guilty of “enticing his wife away” by the Anne Arundel County Court on April 19, 1849, and sentenced to four years in a Maryland Penitentiary. While the law responded blindly, seeing Cinderella as nothing more than property that had been stolen by Abraham, more than 115 citizens petitioned the Governor, pleading for leniency. Sadly, their pleas did not extend so far as to bringing Cinderella back to Maryland.
Long time family friend Thomas D. Marriott wrote Governor Enoch Louis Lowe multiple times, pleading Brogden’s case and asking for his sentence to be reduced. On March 20 1851 he wrote, “Few can be found who do not look upon his attempt to save his wife from a sale to some far distant parts as an offense not deserving of the full penalty of the law.” A few months later he further pleaded that, “It should be borne in mind, that she was about to be sold, when Brogden ran off with her…The crime was in endeavoring to set his wife at liberty! Not that instigated by fanaticism, but one produced by feelings entirely different from those by which fanatics and political abolitionists are amazed.”
The appeals eventually brought the Governor to grant Abraham Brogden a pardon on May 23, 1851, and he was released from the Maryland penitentiary the very next day. They were sadly though never to be reunited, as Cinderella had died during his imprisonment.
Contributed by C. Jane Cox, Administrator, Anne Arundel County Cultural Resources Section
Abraham Brogden MSA SC 5496-003367 (Biographical Series)
George F. Worthington MSA SC 5496-00640 (Biographical Series)
“One Hundred Dollars Reward.” Baltimore Sun 23 December 1848.
R.S. Fisher. Gazetteer of the State of Maryland (Baltimore, MD: James S. Waters, 1852) 58.
Anne Arundel County District 2, Simon J. Martenet, Map of Anne Arundel County, 1860, Library of Congress, MSA SC 1213-1-117.
SECRETARY OF STATE (Pardon Papers) MSA S1031, Abraham Brogden, Box 48, Folder 28, 1851, [MSA S1031-10].
“One Hundred Dollars Reward.” Baltimore Sun 23 December 1848.
BALTIMORE CITY AND COUNTY JAIL (Runaway Docket) [MSA C 2064-2]. Cinderella Brogden, #1268. SECRETARY OF STATE (Pardon Papers) MSA S1031, Abraham Brogden, Box 48, Folder 28, 1851, [MSA S1031-10].
MARYLAND PENITENTIARY (Prisoners Record) MSA S275, Abraham Brogden, #4241, MSA S 275-2, MdHR 5656.
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD), Abram Brigton, 1840, Baltimore City, Ward 10, Page 3, Line 4 [MSA SM61-100, SCM 4714].
Ethan Allen, Clergy in Maryland of the Protestant Episcopal Church since the independence (Baltimore, MD: James S. Waters, 1860) 60.
1850 Census Record (D.C.) for George F. Worthington, Washington City, Ward 1, Page 56, Line 31. Ancestry.com.
Maryland Inventory of Historic Places Scott’s Plantation/ Belvoir AA-183
1860 Martenets Map: Excerpt of Round Bay/Crownsville/ Millersville Area.
