Identification

 

By process of elimination, the list of possibilities of who was buried in the large coffin was pared down. Some individuals were either too old or too young at the time of death. Some individuals had died in seasons other than winter. Some individuals had other historic data that suggested that they could not be the occupant of the lead coffins. When all was said and done, only one individual was left who could possibly have been buried in the lead coffin – Philip Calvert, Chancellor of the Colony and youngest son of the first Lord Baltimore. By association, the woman buried next to him was his first wife, Anne Wolsey Calvert. This left the child buried beside Anne to be identified. We cannot say with surety who this child was. As mentioned above, careful recording of the soil layering helped us to create a relative sequence of burial. The archaeology clearly demonstrated that the child had been buried after both of the adults.

 

Hence, the child could not be the daughter of Anne since she was buried before the child had died. A likely surmise, however, is that these are the remains of a posthumous child of Philip by his second wife, Jane Sewell. After the death of Anne Wolsey, his first wife, Philip married his 17-year-old step-niece. Philip was dead within a year. When Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore returned to England in 1684, Jane went with him. It seems likely to us that Philip’s last hope of posterity, an infant male, may have been interred with the rest of the family group.
Mystery solved! Find out who the child is.

 

Philip Calvert was a man who was closely linked to the development of the Maryland Colony and St. Mary’s City. Lois Greene Carr, historian for Historic St. Mary’s City, and Edward Papenfuse, Maryland State Archivist have undertaken an extensive study of Philip whom they describe as “Consummate Public Servant.”

 

Preservation of the woman’s skull was excellent, so that it was possible to create a facial reconstruction. A specialist in art and forensic analysis began with a perfect cast of the woman’s skull and began to build up the face based on standard tissue thickness and hair color based on samples from the coffin along with a best guess as to eye color. Now this person can look back to us from across the centuries.

 

 

 

Overview	Discovery	The Team	Logistics	Project
Analysis	Study	Identification	Future	Phillip Calvert