BODY IN THE BASEMENT

AIRED: Season 2, Episode 12
THE DETECTIVE: Gwen Wright
THE PLACE: Annapolis, Maryland

THE CASE:

While on a dig, “The Lost Towns of Anne Arundel County” Project unearthed a rather surprising discovery.

Since 1991, this group of anthropologists has been studying a 17th-century settlement in Maryland that became the modern capital of Annapolis.

While excavating a dwelling, the team uncovered a grizzly mystery: a skeleton in the basement!

Was this an executed POW from an English Civil War battle deposited in the cellar of the house?

Or maybe the body of a young man, murdered for his inheritance?

With the expertise of the Lost Towns Team and a Smithsonian forensic anthropologist, the History Detectives set out to determine the identity of the skeleton and find out why it was buried in the basement.

More Leads

Virtual Jamestown: Register of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations 1654-86
A database of over 10,000 contracts for indentured servants.

Virtual Jamestown: Indentured Servant Contracts
Read actual contracts for two indentured servants for the Jamestown Colony.

“On the Misfortune of Indentured Servants”
An account of the passage of indentured servants from Holland to the United States written in 1754.

The Trappan’d Maiden: A 17th Century Ballad
Listen to a ballad that tells the tale of an English indentured servant in Virginia.

Lost Towns Archaeology Project
The Lost Towns of Anne Arundel Project is an archaeological research and public education program sponsored by Anne Arundel County