The Heritage Commission of Annapolis is pushing for the city to sponsor an archaeological survey of a piece of land set to become affordable housing, where a 19th-century farm enslaved African Americans and served as a camp for Union soldiers during the Civil War.
The property is a Department of Public Works site on 932 Spa Road that previously housed an incinerator and a landfill. A Public Works service facility on the land is set to become a 722-unit mixed-income housing development.
Before that can happen, harmful chemicals must be cleaned up. Annapolis will soon vote to transfer the property to the county’s Resilience Authority, which will apply for a federal grant to fund the cleanup and then transfer the property back to Annapolis before construction can begin.
At an environmental committee hearing July 10, Robert Worden, vice chair of the Heritage Commission, asked the city to conduct an archaeological survey of the site before the cleanup begins. Worden cited his own research, which he published in the book “Soldiers of the Cross” in 2024, about the Spa Road site that was once part of a farm owned by John Walton from 1845 to 1860.
“We don’t want to lose this opportunity to identify and preserve artifacts from a Civil War site — it’s all part of our cultural and economic history,” Worden said.
Before the Civil War, Walton kept his farm running with the labor of 28 enslaved African Americans, who grew crops, tended forests for lumber and kept livestock — all of which supplied a hotel Walton owned in downtown Annapolis.
In 1861, at the onset of the Civil War, Union troops occupied the farm for training. The site was a designated “Camp of Instruction,” and soldiers prepared for battle in Virginia and the Carolinas.
If the site were to be professionally surveyed, Worden guesses archaeologists could find remnants of the soldiers’ time there, such as buttons, belt buckles, coins and ammunition. He said it’s also possible there are remains of the people Walton enslaved, although he is unsure where on the 192-acre property they would be buried.
Walton had an ice house next to Spa Creek, where he dammed the river and harvested ice for his hotel in the winters. Worden said this could be another spot where there might be artifacts.
Ward 8 Alderman Ross Arnett, who is on the environmental committee, said he would sponsor a resolution for an archaeological survey of the site once the Heritage Commission provides more details of the request. Warden said he plans to submit a draft to the council within the next two weeks.
“The council is more than happy to work with them,” Arnett said.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Worden said, residents found Civil War-era buttons in the field that is now the Safeway parking lot on Forest Drive. In 2010, when Annapolis decided to expand Forest Drive, Worden unsuccessfully advocated for an archaeological survey of the site.
“Anytime you put a shovel in the ground in Annapolis, you come up with artifacts,” Worden said.
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