Bung Borers and Butter Pots: Comparing 18th-century Probate Records with Archaeological Evidence from the Chesapeake

Summary

Probate records from colonial Maryland offer a unique window into the lives of 18th-century property owners. Conducted by appointees of the Prerogative Court, often neighbors of the deceased, inventories give a sometimes idiosyncratic account of a person’s estate subject to the social and cultural prejudices of the appraisers. Juxtaposing archaeological finds recovered from Long Point Farm, an early 18th-century site in Oxford, Maryland, with the 1723 probate inventory of the property’s owner, a merchant and sea captain named Richard Coward, provides a more detailed and richer account of 18th-century life than is usually garnered from archaeological data alone. Comparing and contrasting the range of items in Coward’s inventory, from small earthenware butter pots to fine bay riding horses, with other contemporary inventories and archaeological data allows for an examination of transatlantic consumption patterns and trade networks stretching from small Eastern Shore port towns to Europe, the West Indies, and Africa.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Pages to Pits: Using Texts and Archaeological Evidence to Examine Interconnected Trading Networks in the mid-Atlantic   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1053