Phase II Investigation, Webster Field Annex, Naval Air Station Patuxent River (2013.016)

This collection contains an artifact inventory, excavation photographs, photograph logs, and artifact analysis methods for phase II investigations at the Webster Field Annex. The MAC Lab accession number for these documents is 2013.016.

On behalf of the Department of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), The Louis Berger Group, Inc. (LBG), carried out site evaluation studies (Phase II archaeological investigations) of five sites at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Webster Field Annex in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. The overall purpose of the investigations was to determine if the five archaeological sites meet the criteria for eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). There are no immediate plans to develop these sites, but these areas may be impacted by future construction. Four of these sites were initially identified during the 1981 field school survey of Webster Field, and the other was first reported by an amateur collector.

LBG recommends none of these sites as eligible for listing in the NRHP at this time. Sites18ST365 and 18ST637 have not been entirely evaluated. Site 18ST331 is a dense scatter of brick pieces in an active agricultural field near the Chapel Field complex, possibly the remains of a brick clamp from the Jesuit period of occupation in the seventeenth century. Testing showed that the brick is mostly in small fragments and produced no features or evidence of burning. Site 18ST331 may be the remains of a brick clamp, but this is not certain, and at any rate the site lacks the integrity to be considered eligible for the NRHP.

Site 18ST365 is a multi-component site in an old field near the airfield control tower. The current project did not attempt to evaluate the prehistoric component of the site, which is quite large, but focused on a dense scatter of brick thought to the remains of a nineteenth-century brick barn demolished during World War II. No foundations were found, and if they were in this location they have probably been destroyed. The prehistoric component, which is much larger, might conceivably be determined eligible by a future study of the site, but the remains of the nineteenth-century brick barn are recommended as not eligible for the NRHP.

Sites 18ST353, and 18ST362 are thin artifact scatters in old plowed fields. Only a handful of artifacts were recovered from these sites, all from the plowzone. They lack the integrity and information potential to be considered eligible for listing in the NRHP. Site 18ST637 was originally defined as a very large site, extending for more than 1000 feet along the shoreline of the St. Marys River. Only part of this site is within Webster Field property. The evaluation focused only on the part of the site within Webster Field property, in a grassy field that is a potential development site. That portion of the site is a thin artifact scatter in an old plowed field, lacking the integrity and information potential to be eligible for listing on the NRHP.