About Naval Air Station Patuxent River - DCMilitary.com

Thomas Stone
National Historic Site
301-392-1776
This plantation, called Habre de
Venture, was owned by Thomas Stone,
a well-respected lawyer who voted for
and signed the Declaration of
Independence. Stone and his wife are
buried on site. Self-guided hiking and
birding trails are available at the site.
Zekiah Swamp
301-645-0540
The 20-mile long, three-fourth-milewide
wooded bottomland swamp originates
near Cedarville Natural Resource
Center, and flows through the county to
the main headwaters of the Wicomico
River.
Christ Church,
William and Mary
Parish
301-259-4327
William and Mary Parish dates from
the 1692 Act of the Maryland General
Assembly establishing Protestant
parishes throughout the state. The
church still uses its Queen Anne
communion silver today.
CALVERT COUNTY
Calvert County’s earliest settlers were
members of the Piscataway nation.
Native tribes established villages along
the Patuxent River where they grew
corn and tobacco on rich farmlands.
Captain John Smith is the first
European known to have seen the
peninsula. In 1608 during his exploration
of the Chesapeake Bay, he wrote,
it was “a fruitful and delightsome
land...amply populated with wolves,
bears, deer and other wild beasts as well
as generally friendly natives.”
Calvert County was established July 3,
1654 by Lord Baltimore and was closely
Drum Point Lighthouse
Our Neighbors
tied to political activities in England.
When the Puritans were driven out of
Virginia, some of them, under the leadership
of Richard Preston, settled in
Calvert County. His home was the site of
the first assembly held in Maryland.
Here in 1655, an armed band of
Governor Stone's men from St. Mary's
took the Puritans by surprise and seized
papers and documents that had been
taken from St. Mary's by the Puritans.
The Great Seal of Maryland was lost in
this raid and has never been recovered.
It is believed to be buried in the garden
or hidden in the walls of the old house.
The time between the Revolutionary
War and the Second War with England
in 1812 was a time of uneventful growth
in Calvert County. The plantation system
developed, and much of the cultural,
social and political life of the county
was tied to this structure. In 1914 one of
the most famous naval engagements in
Maryland history took place in the
Patuxent River. During this time, the
British put ashore many raiding parties
that pillaged, burned and destroyed
many of the old plantation homes,
tobacco warehouses and public buildings,
including the courthouse. When
the Civil War erupted, Calvert County
was inclined to side with the southerners.
At the end of the war, profound
changes touched the county way of life,
bringing almost to a standstill the agricultural
practices which had provided a
gracious living for the landowners. It
was then that the economy of the county
turned to the produce of the water. In
1865 Captain Isaac Solomon established
a commercial fishery and cannery in the
southernmost part of the county on an
underdeveloped island, which immedi-
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