Claire DeRieux, 21 and a member of the class of 2008 at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, helped discover a long-lost 17th -century courthouse in Charles County.

DeRieux, of Waldorf, was one of a team of archaeology students at the college who worked for three weeks to find the site that was hidden under a soybean field near La Plata. The team worked under the direction of Dr. Julia King, a professor of anthropology at SMCM, directed the team.

King credits this success to a team of researchers which was assembled by Michael Sullivan, a businessman and amateur historian in Charles County. The project began in 2007, when the team studied a 1697-plat drawing depicting a three-acre parcel that included the courthouse, stocks, an ordinary inn and tavern and a private welling. Historic land-transfer records show the area was a 150-acre tract called Moore's Lodge. Surveyor Kevin Norris used a global positioning system to match historic land deeds to current geography.

During the dig, the team worked in a 60-acre area, digging more than 700 holes to unearth courthouse artifacts. When the team found an area that included many pottery shards, tobacco pipe stems and glass in early June, King to concluded they had found the historic site.

The first Charles County courthouse was in use from 1674 to 1727. Prior to the team’s find, it was the oldest government building in Maryland that had not been located. Other attempts to locate the site in 1934, 1958 and the 1970s were unsuccessful.

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