Archival background research on the Barwick’s Ordinary Site (18CA261), including a 1779 deed and a 1783 patent, reveal that this colonial site is likely the remains of an 18th-century ordinary or tavern associated with James Barwick of Dorchester, later Caroline County. This tavern was part of a small complex known as “Melville’s Warehouse” or “Melville’s Landing” that served as the first county seat for Caroline County from its founding in 1774 until its relocation to Denton, or “Edenton”, in 1790 (with the exception of some short-lived removals to the Greensboro area). Melville’s landing appears to have consisted of a large tobacco- prizing warehouse (which served as the courthouse), a storehouse that was converted to the county jail, a landing, a ferry across the Choptank, the ordinary, and likely some outbuildings.

The site was first archaeologically investigated in the spring of 2019 after Ed Otter, of CRM firm Edward Otter, Inc., and Jok Walsh, President of the Caroline County Historical Society, contacted the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) to report that the owners of the property had encountered colonial artifacts and articulated bricks while digging with earth moving equipment during a landscaping project. MHT archaeologists conducted a brief site visit in June 2019 to document the articulated bricks in the landscaping pit and examine the artifacts recovered from the pit, which included 18th-century coins, handwrought nails, colonial ceramics, and pipestems. At the invitation of property owners, MHT returned to the site in July of 2019, and again in June and July of 2020 to carry out a tripartite remote sensing survey at 18CA261. Followup excavations with the Washington College Department of Anthropology in the fall of 2020 an throughout 2021 have confirmed the identity of the site.

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