Explore an area in weirdly shaped Maryland that is jam packed with history.Â
Maryland is a weirdly shaped state. It has that weird panhandle on the western size. There’s a couple chunks cut out of it to make Washington, D.C. and Delaware. Maryland stretches from the Appalachians to the Atlantic Ocean.
Google Maps Just look at it, such a weird shape.
Southern Maryland is located south of Washington, D.C., outlined by the red box in the picture above. Yes, it is still called Southern Maryland even though parts of the Eastern Shore are further south. Maryland is weird.
Southern Maryland is full of history, from the early days of settlement to the modern era. It also has lovely parks and even a bunch of lighthouses. I saw so much on my long weekend in the area (which includes some forays into Virginia). Here is a sampling of what I saw in Maryland. Four more posts on what I saw in the area will be coming. Just too much to fit into one post!
This is going to be a long one. Sorry, not sorry.
My first stop was Calvert Cliffs State Park. A mile and a half trail through the forest to the Chesapeake Bay.
Dragonfly chilling near a stream.
The trail runs along a small stream.
It wouldn’t be a Southern Maryland park without some sort of marsh or swamp.
The Calvert Cliffs that give the state park its name. The area is surprisingly hilly for being next to the water.
Middleham Chapel is nearby, which probably states that it was built in 1748 on the front.
Drum Point Lighthouse, one of three surviving screw pile lighthouses that protected the Chesapeake Bay. The 1883 lighthouse was moved to the Calvert Marine Museum in 1975.
Next stop was the Point Lookout Light, located at Point Lookout State Park. This weird looking lighthouse was built between 1825-1830. The lightkeeper’s house isn’t normally built to surround the tower of the lighthouse.
Point Lookout is strategically located at the mouth of the Potomac River. A fort and prison for captured Confederate soldiers was opened here in 1862, named Fort Lincoln. Nothing really remains from the Civil War period, but you can explore a bit of the reconstructed battery.
Fancy bunkhouses like this one weren’t for prisoners. They had their own bunkhouses or tents.
Southern Maryland has a bunch of points leading to lots of lighthouses, like Piney Point Lighthouse, which opened in 1836.
My most random find (honestly, I was totally lost) was the house of Dr. Samuel Mudd. He helped John Wilkes Booth (assassin of Abraham Lincoln) with his broken leg and was put in prison for it. Due to how slow information moved back then, plus his home’s remote location, Dr. Mudd probably didn’t know exactly what Booth did.
Along the Potomac River, right across from George Washington’s Mount Vernon, is the National Colonial Farm in Piscataway Park.
Some older barns. However, I only saw some geese in this area. I really expected more animals to be here. They only had some sheep, goats and the geese.
A colonial style house and barn. Renovations were ongoing, but I think there was supposed to be a kitchen garden or something behind the house.
A colonial style barn. They need to get the sheep in this enclosure to mow the grass. They are great at that.
Moving down the Potomac to Chapman State Park. A nice, forest lined road led to an old plantation house.
The Chapman family’s home was named Mt. Aventine. The current house dates to 1860, with a later garage addition. However, the wing on the left is actually the original house.
The house had a good view over the Potomac. The Chapmans operated an important ferry across the wide Potomac from their property, creating a good income.
They had a great porch to view it from, too.
A trail goes around the property through a lovely forest. The trail takes you by the river, several other buildings and the Chapman family cemetery. Unfortunately, the tombstones are so worn down that you can’t identify who they belong to.
Abandoned house, lost to the woods.
This one is a little creepy though.
Next stop, the Thomas Stone National Historic Site. Thomas Stone, a lawyer and politician, was one of 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Stone planned to have a modest home for his family. However, his family decided to crash there so additions had to be made. The house seriously looks like three different houses connected by passageways.
The wing on the left dates from 1840 but sits on the footprint of the Stones’ kitchen. The right wing is an entirely separate building that may have been moved to the site. I couldn’t find out what it was used for, but historians believe that this building is older than the main house.
The family stayed on the land until 1936, leaving behind some barns.
Behind the house is the family cemetery.
There’s Thomas Stone’s tomb. He died in 1787 at the young age of 44 only a few months after his wife, Margaret, passed away. It is said that he died of a broken heart.
Moving onto nearby Port Tobacco, which was used to ship tobacco from the area. No surprise there. Here is the reconstructed 1819 Charles County Courthouse. Pretty fancy.
The 1766 Stagg Hall near the courthouse. The house is fantastic, except for that horrible roof. Why is all metal?
A little further away is the historic St. Ignatius Catholic Church at Chapel Point. Although the present church dates from 1798, St. Ignatius is the oldest Catholic parish still in existence in the United States, founded in 1662.
The church and cemetery have great views of the Potomac.
Lots of big tombstones here.
I can’t tell if these were cleaned or painted white. They just look so oddly white considering how old they area.
St. Thomas Manor was built in 1741, making it older than the church and the oldest example of Georgian architecture in Maryland. The house has been continuously inhabited by Jesuit priests since its construction. The first Catholic see (i.e., bishop) in the US was founded here in 1798. This manor was also instrumental in reestablishing the Jesuit order in 1805, after the worldwide suppression that started in 1773 by the Catholic church.
Just randomly found this gem across the street from a historical marker about Booth’s escape across Southern Maryland.
St. Mary’s Catholic Church (rebuild of the original 1846 building) was the parish church of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor that fixed up Booth’s leg. Mudd and Booth met at the church in 1864. Booth later bought a horse from Mudd.
A neat and rarely found tombstone of a veteran of the War of 1812.
The real reason I came here. Dr. Samuel Mudd and his wife Sarah’s tomb. He died in 1883 still trying to clear his name.
The last stop was the Surratt Tavern, famed meeting place of the Lincoln Assassination’s conspirators and other Confederate agents.
Southern Maryland was filled with more neat things than I thought it would be. My trip was basically only planned to the area because I needed to do something in July. This trip morphed into a three-day weekend full of history and I have only skimmed the surface in this post. More to come on Southern Maryland and Potomac adjacent Virginia.
Check out my next update where I will be exploring the settlement that started Maryland!
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