The slab of metal came out of the ground dirty and corroded after more than 300 years in the soil of rural Maryland.
Maryland
Rare armor unearthed at site of 17th-century fort in Maryland
What they found late last year was a rare piece of 17th-century armor called a tasset, which was designed to hang from a breastplate and protect one of the wearer’s thighs during battle.
It had been brought by the first European colonists who arrived in the mid-1600s to establish one of the earliest settlements in what would become the United States.
“The X-ray, everybody went nuts over that,” said Travis Parno, director of research and collections at Historic St. Mary’s City, this month. “… It really just brought the whole thing to life.”
It was one of a series of recent discoveries to come out of a major archaeological project that in 2021 discovered the outlines of the long-lost palisaded fort erected in Maryland by the first White settlers in 1634.
In March, the project unearthed the skeleton of a teenager with leg fractures who may have been among the first arrivals.
The archaeologists have also dug up, among other things, a pair of 17th-century scissors, a decorative braid made of metal thread that may have been on a glove or a coat, and the outline of a large building the settlers erected shortly after they landed.
The structure outline marks “one of the largest buildings from this early colonial period that we’ve ever found,” Parno said. “And given the time period, that it’s 1630s, absolutely one of the earliest and largest buildings ever built in colonial Maryland.”
“But the question of ‘what is it?’” has been a mystery, he said in a telephone interview. “Was it somebody’s home? Was it a public building? Did it have a religious function? A civic function? A military function?”
Early accounts say the colonists started building the fort’s storehouse and guardhouse while they were still living aboard the Ark and the Dove, the ships that brought them from Britain across the Atlantic Ocean and up the St. Mary’s River in March 1634.
Parno said that early in the dig the archaeologists spotted what looked like the imprint of a cellar, which they think was used for storage and later for refuse.
They started excavating and realized that the cellar was attached to a large building — indicated by the pattern of stains in the earth left by timber posts.
It had several rooms, and because the timbers seemed to have been large and sturdy, it may have been a story and a half in height, he said.
But it had no fireplace, so it probably wasn’t a home or a guardhouse, which would need heat. Musket parts and 1,200 pieces of lead shot were found in two rooms that may have housed armaments.
But most of the shot was buckshot or smaller, for hunting not combat, he said.
There were also numerous glass and stone trade beads from Europe and Asia that were probably used for commerce with local Native Americans.
Parno said all of this suggested a storehouse for the first 150 colonists, who included many English Catholics fleeing Protestant persecution back home.
Its discovery is important, he said: “This is one of the first things the colonists did when they got off the boat.”
The tasset was found in the excavation of the cellar, which became a trash pit later, after the demise of the storehouse.
It was decorated with rivets making the shapes of three hearts and was probably part of a set of armor that included a second tasset — there was one for each leg — a metal breastplate and a helmet, Parno said.
No other pieces have turned up, but a fragment of a tasset was found elsewhere at St. Mary’s about 40 years ago. Metal helmets and breastplates have been found at the 17th-century colonial site of Jamestown, Va.
The colonists brought many things on their journey: food, tools, weapons, armor. As they experienced life in southern Maryland, they adjusted. Archaeologists think tassets may have been items the colonists found were no longer useful.
Finding the tasset “tells us there was body armor here in the colony,” Parno said. “It also tells us [the colonists] were adapting to the environment. The tassets may have been something that were discarded because they were deemed unnecessary.”
“They’re heavy,” he said. “It’s a hot, humid environment. So you get rid of the tassets. … You keep your breastplate, though, because that’s protecting your core.”
As for the other artifacts, the metal braid was probably made with silver thread, a very rare find, he said. “This is incredibly, incredibly fine silver-like thread that has been wound into this kind of braid.”
“We found about six or seven clusters of metallic fiber,” he said. “Somebody at some point threw away at least one, possibly two, articles of clothing” decorated with the braid. It could have been on a pair of gloves or a saddle or a uniform.
St. Mary’s became Maryland’s first capital and was home to the first State House.
But the fort did not last long. It was built in 1634, but after 1642, mentions of it in the records all but vanish, Parno said. “We know at least by [1645] but apparently as early as 1642 the fort’s not there anymore.”
The original settlement at St. Mary’s was later abandoned, too. The capital moved to Annapolis in the 1690s, and the site was left undisturbed and ripe for archaeology.
Parno said there could be a dozen or more structures still to be found within the perimeter of the fort.
“We’re scratching the surface,” he said. “We’ve got years ahead of us to dig into this time period.”
One of the most unique ships featured in Sail250 Maryland and Airshow Baltimore can be found docked at the Baltimore Peninsula.
USS Marinette LCS25 is one of the most functional ships in the Navy fleet. At 370 feet long with 80 crew members, the ship has a helicopter landing pad and hangar, two rib boats in the belly of the vessel, and heavy artillery, including a cannon.
The ship has four engines, two of which are like jet engines, meaning it can sprint ahead of other vessels to intercept watercraft. It can also truck side to side and spin 360 degrees with controllable reversing and steering deflector buckets attached to the stern of the jet propulsion system. It can also traverse the littoral zones, water close to shore, and navigate waters as low as 15 feet deep.
“Where we shine is our ability to operate where other ships can’t,” said Cdr. Brian Sims, the ship’s executive officer. “For a 370-foot ship, one of the smallest in the fleet, it packs a punch. We can go 40 plus knots.”
The ship is used in counternarcotics missions primarily on the East Coast and in the Caribbean.
It is based in Jacksonville, Florida, but was built in Marinette, Wisconsin, which is where the ship gets its name. It began operating in 2023 and has yet to deploy. The ship can be out on the water for weeks or even months.
“We go out and find drug trafficking individuals and intercept, and the Coast Guard then takes over and arrests,” Sims said.
The pilot house is where the ship truly shines. An officer and junior officer monitor the radar and navigation, while another sailor sits at the helm and oversees steering the vessel and monitoring the engines.
“This is a very unique design for Navy ships,” Sims added.
The ship also hosts several heavy artillery pieces, including a cannon on the bow with different types of rounds to combat different threats. It can fire 220 rounds in a minute.
With its rich Naval history, Baltimore is playing host to some of the Navy’s finest, and the crews are equally as excited to be here in Maryland, the backbone of the Navy, celebrating 250 years of American history.
“Baltimore is a fantastic city, steeped in maritime tradition. Of course, we have Fort McHenry that we sailed past and rendered honors to when we arrived,” Sims said. “Having the ability to be in this role in this position on board this ship to celebrate the nation’s 250th, it’s an absolute honor, and one that, one that gives us all pause, and lets us reflect on where we’ve come as a nation.”
As Maryland families head into another hot summer, many are about to receive an unpleasant reminder of just how badly some state leaders failed to address Maryland’s growing energy problems this year.
Higher energy bills are not coming by accident. They are the predictable result of years of poor planning and a continued refusal by Democratic leadership in Annapolis to confront the real issue facing our state: Maryland does not produce enough electricity to meet its own growing energy needs.
Instead of seriously addressing that challenge during this year’s legislative session, Democratic leaders celebrated passage of the so-called Utility Relief Act (House Bill 1532), which offers Marylanders roughly $12 in savings per month. At a time when families are facing soaring energy costs driven by a massive shortage of reliable in-state power generation, that is not meaningful relief. It is a political talking point designed to avoid the larger conversation Maryland desperately needs to have.
Our state imports nearly half of the electricity it uses. Nearly half of the power keeping homes cool, businesses operating and communities functioning every day comes from outside our borders. Yet even as demand for electricity continues to rise, Maryland continues falling behind on building the reliable generation capacity needed to support our future.
That is not a serious long-term strategy.
Families across Maryland are already struggling with inflation, rising housing costs and economic uncertainty. Energy bills are becoming another major financial burden for working families, seniors and small businesses. But instead of focusing on increasing reliable power supply, meaning fully lowering consumer costs, and strengthening Maryland’s long-term energy security, Annapolis continues offering temporary fixes that fail to address the underlying problem.
The reality is simple: Maryland needs more power generation, and every responsible energy source should be part of the conversation. Natural gas, nuclear, renewables, battery storage, clean coal and emerging technologies all have a role to play in creating a more reliable and affordable energy future for our state.
Maryland also needs a broader conversation about the role experienced infrastructure providers and utilities can play in strengthening reliability and supporting future generation needs. These are organizations that already manage the systems Marylanders depend on every day and understand the long-term planning required to maintain dependable service.
Reliable and affordable energy is not a partisan issue. It is a basic requirement for economic growth, business investment and everyday quality of life.
As summer begins and air conditioners start running around the clock, Maryland families will once again be reminded that energy policy decisions made in Annapolis have real world consequences.
Unfortunately, they are paying for those consequences every month.
Del. Jason Buckel is the Minority Leader of the Maryland House of Delegates and represents Allegany County in the Maryland General Assembly.
MARYLAND (WBFF) — A group of Republican candidates, a voter, and an election-integrity organization are asking an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge to stop the state from certifying primary election results until election officials contact every voter whose original ballot was rejected and allow them to correct the problem.
The lawsuit, filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections, comes a month after state election officials acknowledged that some Maryland voters were mistakenly mailed ballots for the wrong political party and sent replacement ballots to affected voters.
The ballot error affected voters who requested physical mail-in ballots for the June 23 primaries.
The Maryland State Board of Elections said its vendor, Taylor Print and Visual Impressions Inc. (TPVI), mailed some of the voters’ ballots for the wrong political party, but the administrator said the board’s vendor couldn’t identify which voters received erroneous ballots. Over 500,000 Maryland voters had requested mail-in ballots, most of them in Montgomery, Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, and Baltimore City.
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