Henry Miller: The Archaeologist As Architectural Historian

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "From Maryland’s Ancient [Seat] and Chief of Government: Papers in Honor of Henry M. Miller" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Since Henry Miller enrolled in his first field school, he has surmounted challenge after challenge. One of these was becoming an architectural historian. In 1981-84, the Historic St. Mary’s City staff uncovered a 20 by 30-foot post-in-the-ground structure near the center of the seventeenth-century village. Working with Historian Lois Carr, Miller identified the site as the “ordinary” of carpenter Captain William Smith. In 1995, Miller and Kate Dinnell returned to the site. Their feature excavation was meticulous—post molds re-measured below surface disturbance and wood fragments collected. Literature review indicated that the building footprint was from the north of England. Miller drew reconstruction plans, circulated them among architectural historians, archaeologists, and restoration carpenters, and made revisions. Reconstructed in 2002, Smith’s Ordinary is a convincing interpretation of a north of England building, hastily constructed by an immigrant who had not completely mastered Chesapeake clapboard carpentry.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Maryland’s Ancient [Seat] and Chief of Government: Papers in Honor of Henry M. Miller   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 264