After digging down through about a foot and a half of bedding sand and fill we came upon an earlier sidewalk level that resembles many of the current Annapolis sidewalks. You can see the distinct Herringbone pattern just like the sidewalk we removed a week ago. It's amazing that it is so well preserved!This sidewalk though, dates to around the first quarter of the 19th century. We know that the granite curbstones seen at the very bottom of the picture were put in in the 1830s so we think this sidewalk is associated with the original placement of the curbs. In the other unit further down on Fleet street we also found a sidewalk layer that dated to the early 1800s. That sidewalk was not as well preserved, but the two are almost certainly contemporaneous. In the first unit we also found evidence that these curbstones were moved in and bumped up to the current sidewalk level.
We also know that the townhouse that we are digging in front of, 18 Fleet Street, was built in 1902 and so the sidewalk was not associated with this house. There was most likely another house which predated this one. It's pretty neat to think that we've stood on a sidewalk that hasn't been used in around 150 years!
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