There?s plenty of trash nestled in the woods off Interstate 83 in Cockeysville. But not just the button, slate pencil, and several pieces of jagged stone and glass.
“This was the cheapest decorated stoneware you could get,” said archaeologist Julie Schablitsky, holding a sliver of cobalt stone. “It?s like modern-day Chinette.”
The artifacts provide insight to past life on the 250-year-old site, said Schablitsky, who is leading a team of about two dozen archaeologists, volunteers and students on an excavation of a plantation. Experts said the 20-acre parcel served as a gentlemen?s country estate in the 18th century and evolved into a plantation where as many as 19 slaves worked a lime kiln, stone quarries, fields and orchards.
The site is owned by the Maryland State Highway Administration, which hopes to make the site public after its study.
“It?s really about the cultural history now,” SHA spokeswoman Sandra Dobson said. “After we see what?s here and evaluate it, we could develop it for a couple things.”
Peering into a deep hole Monday, Schablitsky pointed to darker soil layers that she said indicated organic matter such as hay and manure, and concluded the stone frame behind her was once a barn. Armed with trowels, crews also have uncovered the remains of the main house, spring house ? what Schablitsky described as a refrigerator ? and what could be slave quarters and a crypt.
The stone foundations represent only about 10 percent of what once stood on the site, officials said.
“It?s like a big jigsaw puzzle,” said John Lewis, 80, a volunteer from Annapolis, who sifted through dirt for artifacts. “We start with the grunt work, and there are experts to interpret it.”
Lewis, who considers archaeology a hobby, said he drives by the site nearly every day but never knew its rich history. The state purchased the property in 1990 after a quarry company razed the dilapidated buildings.
The parcel is also a habitat for snapping turtles, red fox and rare endangered plant species.
“To me, this is a hidden oasis,” Schablitsky said. “It?s surprising this is tucked away in our urban infrastructure.”
Eric Dunton, a member of the State Highway Administration’s cultural resource team, inspects some of the dirt being excavated Monday from the Connemara Plantation near I-83 in Cockeysville. Chris Ammann/Examiner
