The two houses at 612 and 614 S. Wolfe Street in Fell’s Point were homes to working class families throughout the nineteenth century, but have special significance as the homes of several Black ship caulkers and their families during the 1840s and 1850s.

The ship caulkers who lived in the houses were part of the fabric of the Fell’s Point community at a turbulent time in Baltimore’s history.  Although few written records remain about the caulkers who lived at the houses –  John Offer, Henry Scott, Richard Jones, and John Whittington – through careful research and archaeological investigations, we are uncovering the details of what life was like for the occupants of these houses and for Fell’s Point’s Black community in the decades before the Civil War.

In Partnership with the Friends of the Ship Caulkers’ Houses and the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fell’s Point, the Herring Run Archaeology Project conducted a community archaeology program at the Caulkers’ Houses in 2019 and 2020, in advance of the restoration of the houses. Learn more here:

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(Photos, coming soon)