All artifacts unearthed during the restoration are being conserved and cataloged by the Washington College Archaeology Lab.
Next fall, a lucky historian will call one of the oldest houses in Chestertown home. For the past several months, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience has been overseeing the renovation of the house once inhabited by English professor Norman James that the College recently purchased from a subsequent owner.
The 1735 structure on Queen Street in the downtown historic district, known locally as the Buck-Chambers House, will become the Patrick Henry Fellows Residence for distinguished visiting historians.
Unlike many research fellowships, the Patrick Henry Fellowship supports a historian during the writing process. Prospective applicants for the fellowship must have a book-length project currently in the works related to the history or legacy of the American Revolution and the nation's founding ideas.
Although renovations to the Patrick Henry house should be completed by May, the heralding fellow will settle into history at the start of the fall 2008 semester and will teach one course per year.
In the meantime, the house—whose purchase and restoration were funded by the Barksdale-Dabney-Patrick Henry Family Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities—provides current students with exciting bits of history. All artifacts unearthed during the restoration are being conserved and cataloged by the Washington College Archaeology Lab.
Eventually these relics will be displayed at their former home whose walls literally contained so much of Chestertown's history.
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