"…buried…in a most solemn manner"

From the mid-1630s until about 1730, the Chapel Land served as the final resting place for many of the colony's settlers and some of its most important historical figures, including Governor Leonard Calvert, and it is likely that a high percentage of the colonists who arrived on the Ark and Dove are buried in this field. Although some grave markers were used, no trace remains above ground today, and it will never be possible to identify all of these individuals because no church records survive. Archaeology has shown that in the early years of Maryland's settlement, the dead were wrapped in shrouds and placed in shallow graves without coffins, while by the late 1600s a proper burial included a wooden coffin, whose surviving nails can reveal styles such as gable-lidded, hexagonal, or simple box, with eight distinct types identified in the chapel field. Because bodies were wrapped in shrouds and unclothed, archaeologists find no buttons, buckles, or other clothing items, but they do find straight pins used to close the shroud. Many graves in the chapel field show evidence of wooden markers, a common English practice in the 17th century, ranging from a simple board at the head of the grave to elaborate post-and-rail markers, but none of the original markers survive. Efforts to locate all of the graves rely primarily on remote sensing technology, especially ground penetrating radar, which in 1989 identified several clusters of graves and led to the discovery of three lead coffins inside the remains of the brick chapel in 1992, while later investigations detected hundreds of possible graves outside the chapel, indicating a large cemetery throughout the chapel field.

Maryland · United States