Hancock's Resolution
Pasedena, MD: 1997
Hancock's Resolution sits on a promontory at the mouth of the Patapsco River, a heavily-trafficked waterway between Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay. After spending more than 200 years in the Hancock family, the land was given to Historic Annapolis in the 1960s for use as a museum property. We were originally brought in to do a conservation assessment, but finding the house in stable condition we shifted our focus toward a more in-depth historic evaluation of the site. The heart of the assessment was the visual investigation: documenting the site, artifacts, and the conditions of architectural elements with photographs and corresponding descriptions. By simply looking at the characteristics of nails, latches, hinges, tool marks on wood, and construction design we could decipher what technologies were in use. Dating these technologies enabled us to place early construction and subsequent repairs in order and begin to recreate the history of this 18th century coastal site.
