Colonel Addison’s Plantation Revisited

Summary

In the 1980s, archaeological investigations exposed the site of an 18th-century plantation near the Washington, DC Beltway and now destroyed by development. These investigations suggested that the plantation’s first resident was Colonel John Addison, an Indian trader and merchant, militia officer, Protestant, and planter with extensive connections across the Potomac. Twenty-five years on, archaeologists at St. Mary’s College of Maryland are engaged in an intensive re-evaluation of the earliest architectural components of the site, including an early 18th century earthfast structure with an unusual cellar entrance. When coupled with new findings from archaeological sites in the Potomac, our re-analysis of Colonel Addison’s plantation on the early Potomac frontier augments previous research and raises new questions about Addison’s participation in the frontier militia and the nature of colonial interactions on the frontier.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-3,02