Ghost Walls: The Story of a 17th-Century Colonial Homestead

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Lerner Publications

Annotation: Describes the history and rediscovery of St. John's house in Maryland, a home constructed in 1638 that fell into decay in the 1700s and finally disappeared, as well as the work of archeologists and the significance of artifacts found at the site.

Genre: [United States history]

Reviews: 3

Catalog Number: #83377

Format: Library Binding

Special Formats: High Low

Common Core/STEAM: Common Core

Publisher: Lerner Publications

Edition Date: 2014 Release Date: 10/01/14

Pages: 136 pages

ISBN: 0-7613-5408-5

ISBN 13: 978-0-7613-5408-6

Dewey: 975.2

LCCN: 2013036606

Dimensions: 27 cm.

Subject Heading:
Saint John's Freehold (Saint Marys City, Md.). Juvenile literature.
Saint John's Freehold (Saint Marys City, Md.).
Dwellings. Maryland. Saint Marys City. Juvenile literature.
Dwellings. Maryland. Saint Marys City.
Maryland. History. Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. Juvenile literature.
Maryland. History. Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.

Language: English

Reviews:

ALA Booklist (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Just as Walker's Written in Bone (2009) dealt with forensic anthropology at colonial sites in Virginia and Maryland, her latest book introduces the work of archaeologists at another significant location. Using the excavation at the site of St. John's, a long-lost house in St. Mary's, Maryland, as the focal point, she opens the book with the harrowing story of a slave cruelly killed outside the house in 1656, then begins the discussion of excavations at the site, which began in 1962 and continue today. The book traces the house's history chronologically while also detailing the methods and discoveries of archaeologists as well as related research on the period. Along the way, Walker offers a great deal of miscellaneous information about colonial life in Maryland, from building practices to legal disputes to governance to women's roles. The many illustrations include digital drawings of the house at various periods and archival documents as well as many color photos of sites, artifacts, and costumed interpreters. A detailed resource for those studying colonial times, this well-researched book will also interest aspiring archaeologists.

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Walker (Written in Bone) revisits the archaeological discoveries of colonial Maryland, this time focusing on a homestead known as St. John's. Walker thoroughly documents how the historical and archaeological records inform each other and allow scientists and historians to put together a more complete picture of the past. The design incorporates full-color photos of reenactors and artifacts. Reading list, timeline, websites. Bib., ind.

Reviewing Agencies: - Find Other Reviewed Titles
ALA Booklist (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Bibliography Index/Note: Includes bibliographical references (pages 132-134) and index.

Word Count: 29,916

Reading Level: 7.6

Interest Level: 7-12

Accelerated Reader: reading level: 7.6 / points: 5.0 / quiz: 168446 / grade: Middle Grades

Reading Counts!: reading level:10.5 / points:9.0 / quiz:Q65242

Lexile: 1150L

In 1638, John Lewger made a home in the wilderness of the New World, in a place called Maryland. He named his house St. John's, and for nearly eighty years, it was the center of an ambitious English plan to build a new kind of community on American soil. Men and women lived and worked within its walls. Babies were born. Last breaths drawn. St. John's walls witnessed the first stirrings of the great struggles that would dominate the continent for the next three centuries: The unimaginable wealth of the New World's crops and natural resources. The promise of religious tolerance under a new model of government. The injustice of slavery. The betrayal of native peoples. The struggle for equality between men and women. If St. John's walls could have talked, they would have spoken volumes of American history.

And then the walls crumbled. One hundred years after it was built, St. John's House had been abandoned. The buildings slowly deteriorated, returning to the Maryland soil to be plowed under by generations of Maryland farmers. St. John's walls were silent for more than two centuries, little more than ghosts haunting the historical and archeological records.

But they weren't lost. Not entirely.

Award-winning author Sally M. Walker tells the story of how teams of scientists and historians managed to hear the ghostly echoes of St. John's House and, over the course of decades of painstaking work, made them speak their stories again.

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