The Lord Mayor's Tenement

The Lord Mayor's Tenement was a twenty-by-twenty-foot house in London Town owned by David Macklefish, the self-styled "Lord Mayor" of London Town, and it was likely used not as his residence but as a rental property housing a family or craftsmen or laborers, servants or slaves. Built in the 1700s on the original footprint later identified by archaeology, it met an early town requirement that each lot owner construct such a building within five years or lose the property. Archaeologists found soil stains outlining the structure and a burned area marking the fireplace, showing that it was an earthfast, or post-in-the-ground, building with vertical posts sunk directly into the ground and no underlying foundation. Such buildings were common in the Chesapeake during the 1600s and 1700s, but because of termites and decay they did not last long, and this one probably stood only thirty or forty years. Based on the archaeology and other information about early Chesapeake architecture, the tenement was rebuilt in 2002-2003 using tools and building techniques of the 1700s. Around 1700-1720, life in the dwelling was simple, with few luxuries and only basic furnishings; most daily activities, including cooking, took place in the hall with the fireplace, while the second unheated room served as a bedroom or workspace, children and servants slept in the loft, and the surrounding houseyard and kitchen garden were centers of constant labor.

Edgewater, Maryland · United States