Announcing the FY 2022 Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grant Awards

MHT is proud to share the FY2022 recipients of our Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grants! This  grant program, which is funded through the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority Financing Fund, supports a wide variety of research, survey, planning, and educational activities involving architectural, archaeological, or cultural resources.

This year, a total of $300,000 is being awarded to non-profit organizations and universities for an exciting slate of eight projects across the state. Below are descriptions of all the projects awarded: 

The 2022 Tyler Bastian Field Session – The Archeological Society of Maryland, Inc. 

($17,000) 

This annual event provides a hands-on opportunity for laypersons to learn archaeological methods under the direction of professional archaeologists. The funds will cover field session expenses as well as the hiring of contractors to produce a final report and prepare artifacts for permanent curation. 

Preliminary work was conducted last year at the site of Barwick’s Ordinary, an eighteenth-century tavern and home of the first county seat for Caroline County, where the 2022 Field Session will be held next spring. MHT staff photo.

Documenting Dairy Farms in Northern Maryland Phase II – The Center for Historic Architecture and Design, University of Delaware 

($40,000) 

This project will be the second of a multi-year effort to document historic dairy farms and their associated farm structures, resources that are fast disappearing in Maryland. Phase II will take place in Harford, Montgomery, and Washington counties, producing approximately 12 Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties forms, measured drawings for three farm complexes, and a brief historic context of dairy farming in each county. 

The Roop Farm, also known as Margaret’s Fancy, in Carroll County was documented during Phase I of this project. Photo courtesy of the Center for Historic Architecture and Design. 

Tracing Piscataway Indian History on the Ground – St. Mary’s College of Maryland 

($60,000)

This project involves archaeological survey work on several fifteenth to eighteenth-century Piscataway sites along the north shore of the Potomac River. Research will focus on the identification of both Native and European trade items to explore how these items circulated within Piscataway practices and systems of meaning. A summary report will be produced detailing the project’s findings. As the 400th anniversary of Maryland draws near, this project presents an important opportunity to center narratives of the Piscataway in this transformational period. 

Trade items represented more than just economic exchanges to Indigenous communities. The exchange of objects, including beads, occurred within a web of rules, practices, and relationships laden with meaning and developed over the preceding centuries. Photo courtesy of St. Mary’s College of Maryland.  

A Survey of Brick Construction in Colonial Maryland – Anne Arundel County Trust for Preservation 

($44,000)

This project will trace the evolution and development of masonry building traditions in Maryland between 1634 and 1750. During this time period, the use of brick construction by a select few of the colony’s elite contrasted dramatically with the ephemeral building practices of neighbors, a distinction that has never been studied. Approximately ten buildings will be selected for detailed documentation, including measured drawings, field notes, and photographic prints. 

Dendrochronology has positively identified Araby in Charles County as within this early period of masonry construction, dating to 1746. Photo courtesy of Willie Graham. 

Southern Maryland Tobacco Barns Survey and Documentation – University of Maryland 

($42,000) 

Tobacco barns that date before c. 1870 in Southern Maryland will be surveyed for this project. These resources are highly endangered due to functional obsolescence and development pressure. The survey will systematically identify and document previously unknown tobacco barns and update information on resources identified in earlier efforts. Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties forms and a final survey report will be produced.

This survey will provide new interpretive analysis of Maryland tobacco barns, such as the recognition that sheds, as seen on each side of the De La Brooke Tobacco Barn in St. Mary’s County, were often original construction features rather than later additions as previously believed. MHT staff photo.  

Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom: Recording Anne Arundel County’s Past – The Lost Towns Project 

($40,000) 

This project will undertake a detailed archival and literature review of nineteenth-century Black housing in the Chesapeake. The investigators will create a database of approximately 100 such sites, conduct field visits to approximately 20 sites to assess their condition, create or update Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties site data, and write a summary report to disseminate the findings. Through this study, the project aims to broaden public support for the protection and preservation of Black historical spaces.  

This is a multidisciplinary project that may employ documentation techniques such as remote sensing. In this photo, Lost Towns uses ground penetrating radar to investigate the slave cemetery at Whitehall. Photo courtesy of the Lost Towns Project. 

National Register of Historic Places Nomination of Columbia Beach – Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation 

($40,000) 

This project includes the preparation of a National Register nomination for Columbia Beach, a community in Anne Arundel County established as a summer retreat for African Americans during the segregation era, when racist policies barred the Black community from other resort towns along the Chesapeake Bay. The timing of this nomination is critical, as Columbia Beach is currently threatened by development and climate change.  

African American professionals from Washington, DC and Baltimore built many of the early cottages in Columbia Beach. MHT staff photo. 

Architectural Survey of U.S. Route 1: Washington, DC to Baltimore – Anacostia Trails Heritage Area 

($17,000) 

This project will include a reconnaissance survey and the preparation of a historic context report for resources along U.S. Route 1 from Washington, DC to Baltimore City, including Prince George’s, Howard, and Baltimore counties. This is intended to be Phase I of a multi-year project to document the unique resources along U.S. Route 1, including tourist cabin hotels and roadside architecture, minority-owned commercial buildings, and light industrial complexes.  

This architectural survey will record vernacular commercial structures from the recent past, such as this row of commercial buildings in the 1300 block of Baltimore Avenue, College Park. Photo courtesy of the Maryland Historical Trust.  

Availability of FY 2023 funds through the Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grant Program will be announced in the spring of 2022 on MHT’s website (https://mht.maryland.gov/grants_noncap.shtml). Application deadlines and workshop dates will also be found on this page at that time. 

For more information about the grant program, please contact Heather Barrett, Administrator of Architectural Research at MHT, at 410-697-9536 or heather.barrett@maryland.gov.  For information about organizations receiving grants, please contact the institutions directly.