Van Sweringen Site

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]

http://colonialencounters.org/SiteSummaries/VanSweringenSummary.aspx

Introduction

Excavating the van Sweringen site, St. Mary's City (Courtesy Historic St. Mary's City) The van Sweringen site (18ST1-19) is located along the former Aldermanbury Street on a high bluff overlooking the St. Mary's River in St. Mary's City, Maryland. The site is believed to have been occupied first as a Land or Secretary's Office and then later by Garret van Sweringen, his family, and household. Van Sweringen operated the property as an inn or lodging house for an elite clientele. The van Sweringen site is also the site of the colony's (and the Chesapeake region's) first coffee house.

The Land or Secretary's Office was apparently completed by June 1665, with surviving documents placing the building northwest of the Country's House and in the vicinity where the van Sweringen site is located. The first specific mention of the lot containing the site occurred in a 1672 patent of one-acre lots located along Aldermanbury Street when van Sweringen was granted one of these lots; the patent does not mention any standing structures.

Van Sweringen and his first wife, Barbara, had come to St. Mary's City about 1666 from Talbot County, Maryland. Van Sweringen, a Dutch Catholic immigrant who had initially settled in New Amstel, may have been solicited to settle in St. Mary's. The charter incorporating St. Mary's City in 1668 lists van Sweringen as one of six aldermen of the city. Van Sweringen soon rose to high social standing and political importance in St. Mary's, serving as alderman for St. Mary's City in 1668, 1671, and 1685, and as sheriff of St. Mary's County from 1686 to 1688.

In 1676, van Sweringen, who was operating Smith's Ordinary elsewhere on the townlands, considered setting up a brew house and a private lodging house. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was in the late 1670s when the site on Aldermanbury Street was first occupied as a domestic site. In 1680, the Maryland Council is reported to have met there. The inn catered mainly to members of the Council and other elite colonists. Services consisted of food, drink, lodging, and shelter for horses.

Van Sweringen's first wife, Barbara, was dead by 1676 and probably never lived at the van Sweringen site. He then married Mary Smith, a 16- or 17-year-old free immigrant who moved into a household containing up to eight children. The number of servants and/or slaves at the van Sweringen household, however, is more difficult to estimate. At his death in 1698, van Sweringen owned four slaves and two servants, some or all of whom may have resided at his nearby plantation on St. Inigoes Creek.

The van Sweringen family remained in St. Mary's City after the capital moved to Annapolis in 1695, and van Sweringen may have even continued taking in a few lodgers. He died in 1698 at the comparatively old age of 68, leaving his Aldermanbury Street dwelling to his sons, Joseph and Charles, and providing for his widow and other minor children. He also left at least 1,500 acres of land at his plantation in St. Inigoes. The value of van Sweringen's estate, excluding land, was £381.

Mary van Sweringen died in 1714 and, by 1715, her son, Joseph, had married Mary Neale. Both Joseph van Sweringen and Mary Neale had inherited large estates. Joseph died in 1721, leaving an estate valued at 1202 pounds sterling and 1,500 acres of land, presumably his father's St. Inigoes plantation. Joseph's inventory lists a sloop and gear and two carts, items not frequently encountered in early 18th-century inventories, and 22 slaves and seven servants, one of whom was a tailor.

By 1723, Mary was married to William Deacon, the Royal Customs Collector for the north side of the Potomac. Deacon and Mary probably lived at the van Sweringen site for several years before moving to a newly constructed house at nearby Chancellor's Point. Archaeological evidence indicates that the van Sweringen site was occupied until ca. 1745, probably by tenants or servants.

Van Sweringen's probate inventory, taken two years after his death in 1700, describes the principal dwelling as divided into three rooms, including "the Councill House," "the inner roome," and "Mrs. Vanswerings Rome." The remainder of the inventory does not specify rooms or buildings, but significant breaks could be discerned in the inventory's text for the kitchen, the loft in the kitchen, the milk house cellar and the outbuilding. Items listed in the "Councill House" room include three furnished beds, five "old Turkey worked Chaires," one large table with a turkey work covering, five smaller tables, two pictures, and the King's Arms hanging over the fireplace. The inner room contained five chests varying in size, one cupboard, two small tables, two playing tables, one "old" table and five chairs. Mrs. van Sweringen's room, probably the sleeping chamber for the van Sweringens, contained two beds and bedsteads, a third bed, possibly concealed under one of the bedsteads, a large chest and two tables. The closet in this sleeping chamber contained some clothing items and linens.