News and Views

 

By: Bonnie McCubbin
Photos by: Bonnie McCubbin & Alison Burdett

For two non-consecutive days, June 26 and June 28, 2023 the ground of Old Otterbein United Methodist Church, Baltimore, MD, was scraped back, layer by layer, to reveal what time has hidden. This archeological dig, under the direction of Matt McKnight, Chief Archaeologist with the Maryland Historic Trust (MHT), occurred because the entire property is under easement with the MHT due to its historic nature.

Old Otterbein UMC is considered the Mother Church of the United Brethren in Christ strand of our denomination. The congregation was established in 1771, and the current sanctuary building dates to 1785—the oldest building on its original foundation in the City of Baltimore, and the oldest continuously used church in Baltimore. The first gathering of preachers was at this location in 1789, and one of the two founding Bishops for the denomination, Bishop Philip William Otterbein, served this congregation for 39 years until his death in 1813. While it was initially an independent congregation, it played a significant role in the establishment of the first American-born denomination.

In September 2022, Rev. Cynthia Burkert, a retired elder in connection with Old Otterbein Church, was gardening in preparation for a tree-planting ceremony in October. While weeding a particularly stubborn spot, she found bits of pottery sherds, bricks, and even a possible string of beads. She contacted the current pastor, Rev. Bonnie McCubbin, who serves co-vocationally as the Director of Museums & Pilgrimage for the Baltimore-Washington Conference and has a background in historic preservation and archaeology. Rev. McCubbin admonished her to “leave it alone!” so as not to disturb the site. After consulting with a retired archaeologist and friend, Kirsti Uunila, who happens to be a United Methodist, the MHT was contacted and came out to visit.

McKnight and State Terrestrial Archaeologist, Zac Singer, spent a rainy day in September with Rev. McCubbin looking at the site, and artifacts, and making plans. They returned with their team in December to perform ground-penetrating radar (GPR) of the site. GPR uses a special camera mounted on bike tires that is rolled in a specific grid pattern over the property to generate pictures that are stitched together by special computer programs to get an idea of what might lurk below the surface. This is a lot easier and less invasive than digging shovel test pits at pre-determined intervals to guess at what might be present.

From the GPR process it was determined there were several anomalies—places where the ground doesn’t match what is around it and signifies a potential archaeological site of interest. One area of anomaly was in the brick-paved courtyard of the church grounds—an area that was once the cemetery of the church. The cemetery was first moved in 1825 to a site by what became Dorguth Church of the United Brethren in Christ in South Baltimore. Later, this cemetery was moved again to Western Cemetery, where it remains to this day. The team decided this was not an area to be excavated. Another area of interest was where the artifacts were found in September 2022. The team wondered if this might be the privy (outhouse) for the property. The third area of interest was a spot immediately to the east of the sanctuary, where church oral history dictates was Bishop Otterbein’s cottage—a 4-room structure built at the same time as the church. He lived in this cottage until he died in November 1813, despite a newer, larger parsonage being constructed just steps away in 1811.

Plans were made to come back in the summer to conduct an archaeological dig under volunteer power. Volunteers from the church, the annual conference, and the community joined the MHT to map the area, pull back the sod, and dig down in layers. Soil was sifted using screens hung on tripods, and artifacts were bagged. Below, you can find a few of the amazing finds.

The dig revealed that the possible privy location was most likely a trash heap and that the site is on top of a 5,000-year-old prehistoric site, showing continuous occupation for thousands of years.

After the dig, the soil was backfilled and the sod was replaced. The next steps will be to take the finds to the lab, wash the artifacts, dry them, identify and sort them, and finally catalog them for future research. The artifacts have been gifted to the State of Maryland and will be housed at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation (MAC) Lab in Calvert County, Maryland in perpetuity for information and research. Several of the artifacts will be loaned back to the Baltimore-Washington Conference Archives & History for continued education locally.

There was a feature found in the 2 x 2-meter excavation site that was Bishop Otterbein’s cottage. A feature is a staining of soil that is attributed to human interaction with the land. Further work will be done to determine if this is an archaeological significant find. If so, there may be another excavation in the future.

If you’d like to get involved in this work, you can join the volunteer effort in the lab (located in Crownsville, Maryland) to care for the artifacts and objects found during the dig during the month of July. You can also learn more about the history of this site and others in the area through a Pilgrimage. Contact Rev. Bonnie McCubbin, , at the Lovely Lane Museum & Archives to get involved.