Detail of a silver plate dating back to the 6th-7th century CE from the Sassanian Empire. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD. 

Photo by Babylon Chronicle

Babylonian cylinder with building dedication from the era of king Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (605-562 BCE). The cylinder commemorates the rebuilding of the temple of the god Lugal-Marada at the Sumerian city of Marad in Babylonia by king Nebuchadnezzar II. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD.

Photo by Babylon Chronicle

Team says 1662 St. Francis Xavier chapel found

Last year a pair of archaeologists said they believed they had narrowed in on the site of a 1662 Catholic chapel in Compton.

But they were still looking for a key piece of evidence — a post hole that would prove there had been a building on the site. Last month, Scott Lawrence and James Gibb, aided by the Archaeological Society of Maryland, found not one, but several post holes.

“This is what we’ve been looking for for two years,” Gibb said, as he cleared away layers of dirt with a trowel, working in his bare feet.

The original St. Francis Xavier chapel was between the cemetery that is still there and what would have been tidal water leading to Breton Bay, an area that is now silted in. Read more.

John Boston fled slavery in Maryland and found refuge with a New York regiment in Upton Hill, Virginia, where he wrote to his wife, who remained in Owensville. At the moment of celebrating his freedom, his highest hope and aspiration was to be reunited with his family:

There is no evidence that Elizabeth Boston ever received this letter.

It was intercepted and eventually forwarded to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton by Major General George B. McClellan, providing evidence to the War Department and Lincoln administration of the refugee issue.

John Boston’s letter to his wife is featured in our new, free eBook: The Meaning and Making of Emancipation.

The National Archives will also commemorate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation with a special display of the original document.

Image: Page 2 of a letter sent by John Boston to his wife Elizabeth, January 12, 1862, enclosed in a letter from Major General George B. McClellan to the Honorable Edwin Stanton; Letters Received, 1805–1889; Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1762–1984, Record Group 94; National Archives Identifier 783102.

“The 4th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops”

Organized at Baltimore to serve for three years. Company E, pictured above in 1865, was composed largely of men from Frederick and Carroll counties.”

In September 1864, the 4th regiment proceeded to Deep Bottom where it formed a part of the army of the James who were directed to operate against Fort Harrison, which it eventually captured by a gallant dash; this movement was regarded by Gen. Grant as of the greatest importance and all of the troops participating in it, received the highest commendation from the General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States.

source: Robert Cotton and Mary Ellen Hayward, Maryland in the Civil War: A House Divided (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 81. 

Hurricane Sandy causes coffins to rise from their graves. Two coffins, one bronze and the other silver, rose up from the ground after flooding, caused by hurricane Sandy, made the ground swell at Crisfield cemetery in Maryland.

Something similar happened when hurricane Isaac struck earlier this year, as can be seen here.

[To any of my followers who live out there, I hope you, your family and friends are all OK!]

[Oddment recommended by Vintage-Royalty]

Structure found in Md. may be linked to man who inspired 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'

Archaeologists have discovered what they think are remains of a barn or blacksmith workshop in North Bethesda that could date to the days of Josiah Henson, a former slave whose autobiography inspired the novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Looking for evidence of what slave life in Maryland was like, archaeologists with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Montgomery Parks and the PBS program “Time Team America” began exploring the Josiah Henson Special Park on Monday. They found evidence of a buried foundation that may have existed in the late 1700s and early 1800s, when Henson worked on the homestead for landowner Isaac Riley.

The dig could accelerate fact-finding efforts that started in 2006, when Montgomery County bought the historic site from private owners. Since then, it has been open to the public for tours of what was Riley’s home, parts of which date to the early 1800s, and of the grounds where Henson worked. Read more.

May 24, 1844: Samuel Morse opens a telegraph line connecting Washington D.C. and Baltimore. 

Samuel Morse developed the electric telegraph and his eponymous code in 1836; by 1843, the U.S. government had appropriated to him $30,000 for the construction of an experimental 61 km telegraph line that would run from Washington D.C. to Baltimore - this line was completed in early 1844. It officially opened on May 24, 1844, when Morse sent the words “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quote from the Book of Numbers) from the Capitol to Baltimore. By 1861, telegraph lines spanned the continent, connecting the East and West coasts and rendering most other forms of communication obsolete.

Morse’s 1844 telegraph transmitted messages at a speed of thirty characters per minute, a speed that is simulated above. As telegraphs became more advanced (and operators more skilled), much higher transmission speeds were made possible as well.