ST. MARY’S COUNTY, Md. — Somewhere beneath a quiet stretch of private land in St. Mary’s County may lie the remains of a house that witnessed conflict, commerce and daily life during Maryland’s earliest years.
The house was Cross Manor, built by colonial leader Thomas Cornwallis in 1638 — just four years after English settlers arrived aboard the Ark and Dove.
Although a later brick house still stands on the Cross Manor property, the location of Cornwallis’ original home has never been confirmed. Now, archaeologists and students from St. Mary’s College of Maryland are preparing to search for it.
During their Aug. 18 meeting, the Commissioners of St. Mary’s County unanimously approved a $5,000 grant to support the archaeological project. The money will come from the commissioners’ emergency reserve and be managed by the St. Mary’s College of Maryland Foundation.
The project will place students at the center of a historical mystery nearly four centuries in the making.
A House Beyond The Fort Walls
Julie King, a professor of anthropology at St. Mary’s College and an archaeologist specializing in the region’s early history, presented the project to county commissioners.
King said she is always searching for opportunities to take students beyond the classroom and introduce them to the places where St. Mary’s County’s history unfolded.
“With the state’s 400th anniversary rapidly coming up, I thought finding the original Cross Manor house could involve our students in the search for a site that surprisingly has yet to be found,” King said. “It’s kind of a mystery why it hasn’t been found.”
Cornwallis was one of the Maryland colony’s largest investors outside the Calvert family. He served as an adviser to Gov. Leonard Calvert and became a prominent military and political figure in the young colony.
After spending approximately four years within the fort at St. Mary’s, Cornwallis wrote to Lord Baltimore in 1638 explaining that he planned to build beyond the fort’s walls. According to King, he hoped others would follow his example.
His 2,000-acre property became known as Cross Manor.
The brick residence standing there today was constructed around 1750 or 1760, more than a century after Cornwallis built his original home. Despite years of research, the first manor house has remained missing.
One Of Early Maryland’s Finest Homes
Cross Manor was not an ordinary frontier farmhouse.
Research into surviving court records suggests it was considerably larger and more elaborate than most houses built in Maryland and Virginia during the same period.
Many early colonial homes contained only two or three rooms. Cross Manor reportedly featured several rooms, an unheated central passage and what may have been the earliest dedicated dining room in Maryland or Virginia.
Dining rooms are common today, but King explained that the idea was innovative even in England during the early 17th century.
Historian Garry Wheeler Stone reconstructed the house’s possible design using descriptions preserved in a lawsuit filed by Cornwallis. Those records survived because of one of the most destructive episodes in early Maryland history.
A Manor Plundered During A Colonial Rebellion
Only several years after Cross Manor was built, the house became entangled in a violent uprising.
In 1645, English privateer Richard Ingle led a rebellion against Maryland’s colonial government. During the conflict, sometimes called the Plundering Time, Ingle’s forces raided properties belonging to supporters of the Calvert family.
Cross Manor was plundered three times and used as a base while Ingle’s forces attacked other properties throughout the colony.
The nearby Jesuit manor at St. Inigoes was also raided.
Cornwallis later sued Ingle, producing detailed descriptions of the house, its furnishings and the property that had been taken or destroyed. Those legal records now provide archaeologists with an unusual glimpse inside one of early Maryland’s most significant residences.
Historian Timothy Riordan has described Cross Manor as the finest house in early Maryland.
Following Clues From St. Inigoes
The search will begin with evidence from another early colonial property whose location is already known.
The Cross Manor land patent bordered St. Inigoes Manor, a Jesuit residence established around 1640 on land that is now part of Webster Field.
Archaeologists located the St. Inigoes manor site in 2000 during work to preserve the naval installation’s buried history. Its proximity could help researchers narrow the search for Cross Manor.
King believes the two houses may have been positioned within sight of one another so their occupants could raise an alarm if danger approached by water.
Excavations at St. Inigoes uncovered artifacts including a coin weight, a candlestick, Chinese porcelain and tobacco-pipe fragments. The Chinese porcelain was especially rare in Maryland and Virginia during that period.
Researchers searching for Cross Manor will watch for similar objects.
They could also discover beads, knives, scissors, brass items and other goods connected to trade with Indigenous communities. Cornwallis was an Indian trader who interacted regularly with the region’s Native people.
Artifacts of that kind could become the “signposts” leading archaeologists to the lost manor.
Students Join The Search
The project is expected to take approximately 10 weeks, but researchers plan to spread the work across two semesters so more students can participate.
Students will help survey the land, excavate potential sites, clean and identify artifacts and eventually present their findings.
The county’s contribution will help pay for two staff archaeologists to assist with the project. King has also applied to the Maryland Historical Trust for additional funding.
The Southern Maryland National Heritage Area has committed another $5,000 to help students document and explain the search through blog posts and other public presentations.
Because the suspected location is on private property, it may not become a site residents can visit. However, King said the research can still make the history accessible to the public.
“I want my students, and I want county citizens, as they drive down the road, to know that history didn’t take place over there,” King said. “It took place everywhere in this county.”
Property owners within the project’s roughly 20- to 30-acre search area have given researchers permission to enter their land, King said.
Preserving What May Still Be Underground
Commissioner Scott Ostrow questioned how spending taxpayer money on a search taking place on private property would benefit county residents.
King said identifying archaeological resources can help ensure they are not unintentionally destroyed by future construction. If landowners know where a significant site is located, they may be able to avoid disturbing it when building a garage, installing utilities or completing other projects.
The findings could also expand the county’s historical record and strengthen heritage tourism throughout Southern Maryland.
Commissioners noted that only a fraction of Historic St. Mary’s City and the county’s other early sites have been uncovered, leaving substantial opportunities for new discoveries.
The St. Mary’s County Historic Preservation Commission unanimously supported the funding request during a special Aug. 6 meeting.
With Maryland preparing to commemorate the 400th anniversary of its founding in 2034, supporters said discovering Cross Manor could help the county tell a more complete story of its place in state and national history.
“The discovery of Cornwallis’ 1638 Cross Manor could be a real gift from our students to the county as the 400 approaches,” King said.
The search may ultimately reveal the remains of one extraordinary house. But the larger project is about showing that the history of Maryland’s first county stretches far beyond the boundaries of Historic St. Mary’s City — beneath farms, neighborhoods, military installations and the back roads residents travel every day.
Watch below at 1:04:27 to see the full meeting:
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