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The site of the St. Clair Wright Center—at the foot of Main Street opposite the waterfront—has a fascinating past! In many ways its story reflects the commercial and social history of Annapolis in microcosm.

In 2003 and 2004 a team led by Dr. Thomas W. Cuddy conducted archaeological investigations several strata deep below the building at the back of the site. They also studied the findings of previous archaeological reconnaissance at the site and in the surrounding area. In addition, they pored through scores of relevant histories and archival documents, such as notices and ads in the Maryland Gazette.

Pulling together information from all of these sources, the team was able to construct an intriguing account of what took place at the site over more than three centuries.

Here are some highlights . . .

1683
The site appears, as part of “Todd’s Pasture,” in a survey conducted when the town of “Arundelton” (later “Annapolis”) is created.

1712
The land is purchased by Amos Garrett, first mayor of Annapolis and, at the time of his death (1722), the richest man in Maryland.

1737
Garrett’s heirs sell the property to Dr. Charles Carroll, who later subdivides it and rents it to several different tenants.

1745
Records show the property has been developed—apparently with a dwelling house, kitchen, bake house, and meat house, probably as separate buildings. The bake house is being operated as a bakery business by John Chalmers. Indentured servants employed by the business may be living in the dwelling house.

Annapolis, colonial Maryland’s capital, is on its way to becoming one of the top social and economic centers in the British colonies. Maritime commerce in Annapolis is thriving. A bakery business can therefore flourish in the heart of town across from the docks—catering to the growing merchant and professional class and supplying debarking ships (and, later, Revolutionary troops) with long-shelf-life biscuits.

1789
Records indicate that Richard Fleming is now occupying the Main Street property. Having formerly struggled in the not very profitable shoemaking business, he has now entered the baking business. He is using the bake house facility at 99 Main as a commercial property—and, it appears, losing out to his competitors.

On December 29 a fire breaks out at the site—deliberately set by the hapless Fleming? The fire burns the entire city block to the ground—including the dwelling house of a competing baker, the home of another prominent merchant, and several warehouses.

1791
Frederick Grammar, a successful Annapolis baker, constructs the building currently at 99 Main Street: an outstanding example of Georgian-style commercial architecture of the period.

Grammar also builds a separate 16’ by 14’ brick kitchen at the back of the Main Street property, overtop the burned bake house, on what later becomes 196 Green Street. He operates a bakery there, purchases the entire property from the Carroll heirs in 1792, and leases the front portion to Lewis Neth, a merchant.

1826
When Neth dies, the property is purchased at auction and then changes hands many times over the next few decades. It is apparently used for both residential and commercial purposes, as was common at the time.

1857
Dennis Claude, Jr., converts the brick kitchen Grammar built into a separate dwelling (196 Green Street).

1897
The City Directory shows 99 Main Street is being operated as a fruit store and confectionary—joining motley other commercial enterprises then prevailing on Main Street.

Early 20th-century records show several businesses being operated out of the building—including a dry goods store, boarding house, secondhand furniture store, watch repair shop, pet store, and eatery.

1957
The City of Annapolis orders the property to be razed. Port of Annapolis, a group of Historic Annapolis Foundation members, purchases it and restores it as a store and residence. This preservation success marks the beginning of the restoration of the Annapolis waterfront.

1970
The building becomes the popular Sign ‘o the Whale specialty shop. It operates as such for more than three decades.

2003
In preparation for the property’s transformation into HistoryQuest, Cuddy and an Archaeology in Annapolis team conduct investigations under the brick and cement floor of the 196 G Street portion of the property, focusing on the bake house and kitchen area known to have existed there. They aim to locate and learn from the structural remains and artifacts they find, and to mitigate any adverse impact of construction.

2004
Archaeological investigations continue (under URS Corporation beginning in August 2004). A total of nine test units are dug, down to the point where ground water suffuses them (approximately 4’ below the surface).

The team’s discoveries include:

• Almost 7,000 artifacts. The top strata yield plastic and Styrofoam pieces and aluminum pop-tops from construction activity of the 1960's. But deeper down, there is a preponderance of ceramic pieces: evidence of the property's 18th and early 19th century use as a bakery and kitchen. The oldest ceramic piece: a largely intact ceramic bowl, probably dating back to the 17th century.
  
  Also found: Hundreds of other bits of ceramic, most commonly the creamware characteristic of 18th-century Annapolis usage . . . Many pieces of the olive green glass used for wine bottles in the 18th century . . . Plenty of mammal bones, some with evidence of carving . . .Many clay pipe bowls and stems (tobacco was the big local agribusiness of the time, and smoking the ubiquitous pastime!), one stem with initials that appear to be "J.C."—John Chalmers, the mid-18th-century baker? . . . Hundreds of fragments of other architectural, household, and personal items.
  
  All artifacts are properly bagged and stored for further study at the University of Maryland and Historic Annapolis Foundation lab facilities.
• Ample charred evidence of the December 1789 fire that destroyed the block, including the bake house known to have existed on the site since at least 1745.
• A private brick-lined well-nearly 3' wide, depth unknown—that was sunk just outside the original bakery wall and then rebuilt and apparently enclosed within the post—fire (1791) kitchen. This well was used, probably until the mid-19th century, to bring fresh water to the property for cooking and cleaning purposes.
• The stone and brick base of a chimney belonging to the early bake house that burned.
• The remains of a large brick hearth that was evidently built up, by Frederick Grammar in 1791, to a convenient height for use as a bake oven.
• Considerable remains of a herringbone brick patio that Grammar apparently had laid over most of the back yard shared by the Main and Green Street structures he built in 1791.
• Evidence of an additional 18th-century structure at the back of the property, built of wood with post-in-ground techniques, just outside the bakery—perhaps as a dwelling for servants.