Overview: Archaeological Identification and Evaluation Studies of the Best and Thomas Farms at Monocacy National Battlefield

Best Farm and Thomas Farm Survey

The most intensive investigations have focused on two of Monocacy’s component properties: the Best Farm and the Thomas Farm. A three-year Archaeological identification and evaluation study of the Best Farm has recently been completed, and a similar two-year study of the Thomas Farm property is currently underway. Such research-driven studies are intended to locate and evaluate known and potential Archaeological resources and to determine their eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Using traditional excavation and laboratory analyses, remote sensing techniques such as systematic metal detector surveys and gradiometry, and computer visualization and GIS, the Best and Thomas Farm projects have provided park managers with information that will aid in the long- and short-term management, development, protection, and interpretation of these sites.

An Archaeology of Slavery at the Best Farm

The Best Farm, named for the tenant family who lived there during the Battle of Monocacy, has a rich occupational history that goes beyond the engagement that was fought on its fields on July 9, 1864. The property’s historic occupation dates back to the 1790s, when the property was the southern portion of 748-acre plantation known as L’Hermitage. L’Hermitage was created by the Vincendières, a family of French planters who came to Maryland from the colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) to escape civil unrest associated with the French revolution and with the slave uprisings that began in Saint-Domingue in 1791. By 1800, the Vincendière family owned 90 enslaved laborers, making them among the largest slaveholders in the county at that time.

Archaeological investigations of the Best Farm have focused on the farm’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century occupational landscapes, and have uncovered a number of unrecorded structures and features, including the site of what is believed to be the slave village associated with L’Hermitage. Structures and features identified within the farm’s historic building cluster include the foundation of a large barn dependency, a stone-lined privy, a brick cistern, an icehouse, and a kitchen midden. Excavations at the site of the probable slave village have uncovered the remains of a large wall or fence enclosure as well as an unidentified domestic feature, which may be structural in nature. A number of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century artifacts have also been recovered from the slave village site, including ceramics, glassware, architectural materials, coins, buttons, and other personal items. Elsewhere on the property archaeologists have also uncovered evidence of the Best Farm’s Civil War past, including small arms and artillery projectiles associated with the Battle of Monocacy and evidence of short-term Union and Confederate encampments.

The Middle Ford Ferry Tavern at the Thomas Farm

In 2004, archaeologists discovered a mid-eighteenth century tavern site at the Thomas Farm. Although its exact location was unknown, the presence of the tavern was identified in historic records, which indicated that in 1754 Daniel Kennedy was granted a license “to keep a house of Entertainment in the County of Frederick” on the east side of the main road between Georgetown and Frederick. Additional primary historical research indicates that the tavern was in use at least until the end of the eighteenth century, and may have been active into the third decade of the nineteenth century. During the 2004 field season, Archaeologists uncovered the tavern’s hearth platform and chimney fall, as well as its cellar hole, measuring approximately 14 feet by 19 feet. A wide variety of artifacts were recovered, including architectural materials such as brick, mortar, plaster, and hand-wrought nails and domestic artifacts such as buttons, ceramics, glassware, coins, and other personal items. Primary historic references indicate that a stable and blacksmith shop may also have been part of the tavern complex.