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- PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, MARYLAND ERECTED ON ST. GEORGES DAY, APRIL 23,1696
NEWS AND NOTES FROM The Prince George's County Historical Society Vol. XI, no. 6 June 1983 The June Meeting: Early Maryland Architecture Orlando Ridout V will speak on the architecture of Maryland in the pre‑Industrial age, the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, at the June meeting of the Prince George's County Historical Society. Mr. Ridout will concentrate on the vernacular architects ture of the time, the distinctive local types found here in Maryland, often exemplified in the more modest homes and farm and outbuildings. His talk will be accompanied by slides, and he will offer a stimulating program of both architectural and social history. Mr. Ridout is well qualified to speak on this subject. He works as Maryland Historic Sites Survey coordinator for the Maryland Historical Trust. He is a member of the board of directors of the Vernacular Architecture Forum and is active with other architectural groups. His family has been active in public affairs in Maryland since the colonial era. The meeting will be held on Saturday, June 11, at 2 p.m., at Riversdale, the Calvert mansion. Guests are welcome, and refreshments will be served. Riversdale is located at 4811 Riverdale Road in the town of Riverdale. The program promises to be an interesting and informative one. Please join us for this last meeting of the Spring season. Potomac River Heritage Days The National Colonial Farm will hold the first annual Potomac River Heritage Days on Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26, from noon until 5 p.m. This festival will celebrate the historical importance of the‑Potomac River and its environmental impact on the area. There will be demonstrations of crafts, lectures, and displays. There will be no admission charge. The National Colonial Farm is located at 3400 Bryan Point Road in Accokeek. Follow Indian Head Highway (Route 210) south beyond Oxon Hill, Fort Washington, and Piscataway. Bryan Point Road intersects with Indian Head Highway; turn right and follow the road to the farm. The phone number is 301‑283‑2113. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND ERECTED ON ST. GEORGE'S DAY, APRIL 23,1696 In Appreciation On June 15 our good friend and longtime Society member Helen W. Brown will be moving to a new home in the Midwest. Vie would be remiss if we did not recant some of Helen's activities during her long residence in Prince George's County. An organizing member of the Toaping Castle Chapter, DAR, Helen and her longtime associate, the late Louise Hienton, began many years ago to tap the rich storehouse of Prince George's County records. The first product of these long hours of work was the index of tombstone inscriptions of both the private and public burial grounds in the county. Following this she indexed the vital records of three of the colonial parishes of Prince George's County: Queen Anne's, St. Paul's, and Prince George's parishes (Louise Hienton did the voluminous records of King George's Parish). Several years later, because these church indexes were only in typescript form and located in a limited number of libraries, Helen prepared a new manuscript which was published‑by the Society. This research aid is now located in principal libraries across the nation. Another research aid prepared by Mrs. Brown was the Index to Marriages, Prince George's County, Maryland, 1777‑1873. Perhaps her greatest achievement, accomplished in collaboration with Louise Hienton, was the index to naturalizations in the state of Maryland. This massive file in the Hall of Records in Annapolis, containing thousands of card entries, was completed over a period of many months spent in the Hall of Records and through week‑long "vacation trips" to the courthouses of Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore. It is perhaps the only one of its kind in any state. Just recently Mrs. Brown organized a group in her DAR chapter and the index of the records of St. Mathew's Parish was the result. What is the sum total of these efforts? It means that the vital statistics of Prince George's County for the early period are more accessible to researchers than those of the other counties. It also means that future generations of researchers need only to consult an index rather than spend endless hours trying to read undecipherable handwriting of early records, which will be spared the wear‑and‑tear of constant handling. While she spent countless hours on these labors of love, Mrs. Brown always had time to join in other community projects involving the preservation of our county's heritage. These were the many reasons why she was designated as one of the inaugural recipients of the Historical Society's St. George's Day Award. And now, Helen, as you travel to your new home in Bloomington, Ind., home of Indiana University, with your daughter and son‑in‑law, Betty and Neil Yoder, and two lovely granddaughters, we want to express our sincere appreciation for your many good works on behalf of our county. Please keep in touch. --F.S.D.
After the June meeting, the Society will not meet until September. There will be plenty of interest going on, however, including a summer concert series by the Friends of Montpelier. Watch the newspapers and this newsletter. These New Invented Aerostatic Balloons Next year, in 1984, America will celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of balloon flight on this continent. A national commission has been established to plan the celebration, and it, appears that the focus of attention will be in Baltimore, where the first manned ascent took place. There will be local celebrations here in Prince George's County a week earlier, however, for if Baltimore was the site of the first manned ascent, Prince George’s County was the site of the first documented unmanned ascents, the place where the tests for the Baltimore flight took place. Peter Carnes, lawyer and innkeeper of Bladensburg, was the promoter of the first manned flight in Baltimore, and it was he who sent a tethered, unmanned balloon aloft near Bladensburg to the delight and astonishment of a large local crowd. The event was reported in the Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser of June 24, 1784, and we thank William Aleshire for transcribing this article for us: "On Thursday last [June 17th], Mr. Peter Carnes, a gentleman of Maryland, distinguished in the law, made an experiment, in the vicinity of Bladensburg, of one of these new invented aerostatic balloons, which have for so long a time past engrossed the conversation of every part of Europe and this Continent.‑‑It is with infinite pleasure that we say, the philosophic Mind had as rich a repast as the intellectual faculties are capable of receiving, when in the researches of new systems; for the balloon sufficiently demonstrated its powers, and we may venture to affirm, that few out of many hundred spectators, that had any ideas of the different properties of air, but will ever think themselves obliged to this eccentric enterprising Gentleman, for the great labor and attention he bestowed in the formation of this machine.‑‑The expence in the construction must have been considerable, the diameter of this aerial elipsis being 35 feet, made of beautiful, costly and richly varigated silks; but the generous public will no doubt discharge their pecuniary obligations to Mr. Carnes, though at the same time, the philosopher must ever hold himself his debtor. "We are informed Mr. Carnes proposes, in the course of a few days, to make a second exhibition, in Baltimore. He is particularly cautioned relative to his fire, and to let no temptation, no love of fame transport him to such enthusiastic ideas, as to venture himself in this chariot of the Sun, lest the fate of the ambitious Phaeton should be his portion‑‑the rivers Po and Potomack in this case might be synonimous‑‑'But if thou wilt go, my boy, observe the milky way, in Medio iutissimus ibis.' "Mr. Carnes’ Balloon, the day previous to his grand exhibition at Bladensburg, broke away when several hundred feet high in the air, but happily for the lovers of the arts was overtaken and restored, without much essential damage to it. Could the great, Sir Isaac but burst his searments, and peep from under his monumental alabaster, at an exhibition of any of these great, new and wonderful discoveries, what would his exclamation be, or what hints might it inspire! The true anecdote of his being caught with a bason of water, soap and a tabacco pipe, blowing bladders in the air, would doubtless immediately rush into his mind, and he would with his wonted greatness of soul, for the moment, blush at the degree of comparison between his balloon of the day. "Mr. Carnes is likewise cautioned by another correspondent not to be too rash in this Baltimore Exhibition. The ingenious philosophic mind can be as well ascertained of the powers of his balloon, by a simple experiment, as if it carried up a dozen men, women, and children.‑‑This gentleman thinks the public cannot be too much obligated to this rich genius, who, regardless of labors or expence, has prepared so grand a spectacle to Feast the eye of the scholar and philosopher. He is requested further by this gentleman, to study as early exhibition in the day as possible at Baltimore, as the power of his balloon materially suffered on Thursday last, from excessive external heat. It will be worth his observation to notice that every European experiment of any consequence, has been made in the cool seasons." While this ascent in Bladensburg of June 17, 1784, seems to have been the first ceremonial ascent, there appear to have been earlier tests in Bladensburg, so the date of Peter Carnes' very first balloon‑raising of any sort may never be known. The correspondent's reference to the public's obligation and debt to Carnes refers to the admission fee Carnes charged to witness the balloon‑raising. And the correspondent's warning not to attempt a manned ascent in Baltimore went unheeded. Carnes himself did not ascend in the chariot, but a thirteen‑year old boy named Edward Warren did. Peter Carnes was an interesting character. Stepfather of William Wirt (later Attorney General of the United States), Carnes seems to have skipped town after his debts to the rest of the Wirt family mounted up. He resurfaced in South Carolina, where by 1790 he was a figure of some political importance, the leading spokesman of the up‑country representatives in the state constitutional convention of that year. His legal career in that state earned him a place in the biographical work, The Bench and Bar of South Carolina. Carnes did not rest in South Carolina, however, for he moved at least one more time, to Georgia. It was only a few years ago that we in Prince George's County learned of Carnes' career in South Carolina. When contacted about Carnes, the local historical groups in that State were amazed to hear of his activities here. Today balloon ascents are viewed as interesting, delightful, and colorful spectacles. The idea of defying gravity and venturing aloft is so old‑hat that a balloon ascent is hardly today considered a scientific wonder. To use lighter‑than‑air gases to fly seems absolutely primitive, despite its charm. This article is a good reminder that so much of what we take for grant ed today came only after the expense of much thought, labor, and experimentation. Balloon flight was as wonderful to a past age as a trip to the moon is to ours. That the first documented U.S. tests took place in Prince George's County is a distinction worthy of celebration. --Alan Virta Population Predictions‑ The population of Prince George's County has grown tremendously in the twentieth century, from 29,898 at the turn of the century (only 8,000 more than it was one hundred years before) to 665,071 in 1980. To state the obvious: the great expansion of federal government programs in Washington was the direct and major cause of this population growth, bringing more and more people to this area, with their families, to work for Uncle Sam. The greatest population growth came in the 1960's, a decade which saw 300,000 more people living here at its end than at its beginning. The increase during the 1970's was miniscule, only about 5,000, as local conditions (among others, a sewer moratorium covering much of the county) diverted further suburban growth elsewhere. This low figure of increase‑ does not mean that there were not changes in our population in the last decade, however, for there was quite a change in its composition, namely a decline in the white population and a marked increase in the black. What changes will occur in the 1980's and beyond with the end, or at least a hiatus, in rapid governmental growth, remain to be seen. It is interesting to look back at old population predictions and see how they have turned out. One such prediction is found in a report prepared in 1951 for the Board of County Commissioners by Public Administration Service, a private research and consulting firm with headquarters in Chicago, Ill. Entitled Local Government in Prince George's County, Maryland: A Survey Report, this work examined all the activities of county government and suggested a number of reforms. There had been a major turnover in county government of revolutionary proportions in the elections of 1950, and the new group was quick to contract for this survey of governmental operations. Among other changes, the survey recommended a charter government for the County, headed by a five‑member County Council and an appointed County Manager. This was, of course, not implemented, and the old commissioner form of government remained until 1971. To turn specifically to that portion of the report which deals with projected population growth in the thirty years leading to 1980: "The National Capital Park and Planning Commission recently estimated that the population of Prince George's County in 1980 would be 310,000. As this estimate was based upon a 1948 population estimate which was proved by the 1950 census to be far too low, it is probable that the 1980 forecast is also much too low. To date, it appears that the county's rate of growth has not started to level off. Estimates based on building permits issued indicate that the population of the county in the one year after the 1950 census increased 21,948, or 11 percent. On this basis the present population of the county is probably over 215,000. It is unlikely, however, that such a high rate of growth will be continued indefinitely. If, for the sake of arriving at some estimate of population, it is assumed that the average rate of increase will be only 33 percent every ten years, the population of the county would be 257,753 in 1960, 342,811 in 1970, and 455,939 in 1980. Such a growth would more than double the population of the county in the next thirty years." The Public Administration Service estimate was thus about 200,000 too short. We would venture to say, however, that no one could have accurately predicted the explosive growth of the 1950's and 1960's. Anyone who would have offered those numbers would have been called crazy. For the record, these are the census figures for the post‑war era: 1950: 193,799 1960: 357,395 1970: 660,567 1980: 665,071 --Alan Virta The Sage Speaks Anyone caught in the beach traffic of Memorial Day weekend may want to reflect on the words of H.L. Mencken in 1933 concerning the building of a bridge across the Chesapeake Bay: "The current bridge scheme is fantastic. There is not the slightest reason to believe that any such structure could ever earn enough to pay the interest and amortization. There is simply not enough traffic between the Eastern and Western Shores and there is no evidence that there will ever be enough thereafter." ‑‑As reported in Maryland magazine, Summer 1983
Society functions from time to time, and sponsored several new members. Our sympathies are extended to the family. The Prince George's County Historical Society Subscription to this newsletter is included in the annual dues of $5.00. To join, write the Society at P.O. Box 14, Riverdale, Maryland 20737. President: Frederick S. De Marr; Treasurer: Herb Embrey; Corresponding Secretary: Edith Bagot; Editor: Alan Virta, 474‑7524. 
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