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The Prince George's County Historical Society
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- PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, MARYLAND ERECTED ON ST. GEORGES DAY, APRIL 23.1696
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The Prince George's County Historical Society Vol. VIII, no. 4 April 1980 The St. George's Day Dinner The Prince George's County Historical Society will celebrate the 284th anniversary of the founding of Prince George's County with the annual St. George's Day Dinner, to be held this year at the University of Maryland on St. George's Day, Wednesday, April 23. As is the custom, the dinner (which begins at 7:30 P.m.) will be preceded by a cocktail reception at 6.30, Presentation of the St. George’s Day Awards, honoring individuals and organizations have made significant cant contributions to the preservation of our heritage, will round out the evening. All members of the Society, their families, and friends are invited to attend. Please return the response card which came with your invitation to the Society by April 15. If somehow you did not receive an invitation, you may call President Frederick DeMarr at 277‑0711 or Alan Virta at 474‑7524 in the evenings. Please note this year's dinner will be at the Center for Adult Education, not in the Student Union as it was last year. The St. George's Day Dinner always brings out a good crowd of congenial people who share a common interest in the history of our county. If you've joined us before, come again. If you've never come before, do come this year. Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimages April 19 Saturday, April 19 will be a banner day for anyone interested in the history of Prince George's County, for on that day, twelve noteworthy and historic buildings‑‑seven of them private homes‑‑will be open to the public for touring, as the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage comes to Prince George's County for the first time in sixteen years. The seven private homes, all located in the southern and central portions of the county, are His Lordship's Kindness, Weston, Mattaponi, Mount Calvert, Content, Woodstock, and Drumsheugh. Three historic PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND ERECTED ON ST. GEORGE'S DAY, APRIL 23.1696 churches are also on the tour‑‑St. Thomas's at Croome, Trinity in Upper Marlboro, and St. Barnabas, Leeland. Completing the list are the Marlborough Hunt Club (on‑the Patuxent southeast of Upper Marlboro) and the Surratt House in Clinton. For those unfamiliar with house tours, the procedure is as follows: you may begin your tour at any of the sites, where you purchase your ticket and receive a program book and map. You are then free to visit the other places on the tour at your own pace. Tour hours are 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $8.00 a piece, and this includes admission to all sites. Visitors are asked to wear flat‑heeled shoes, and bus groups must contact Pilgrimage headquarters in advance. Lunch will be served at Trinity Church in Upper Marlboro for $4.00. Residents of the southern and central parts of the county are probably familiar with the locations of several of the places on the tour‑‑or with at least one, which is enough to get started. For the benefit of North county residents who may not be, however, we offer these directions. For those coming to the tour via the Beltway, the site closest to you is probably Drumsheugh. Drumsheugh is located on Route 202 (Landover or Largo Road) about a mile below the Community College, on the left hand side of the road. For those coming down Route 301 (Crain Highway) from Bowie, St. Barnabas at Leeland is the closest for you. About a mile below Central Avenue, at Second Genesis, turn right onto Oak Grove Road and follow it about 2 miles to the church. Or, of course, you may go straight into Upper Marlboro to either Trinity Church or Content and begin your tour there. Touring these historic, sites‑‑and stepping into our past-‑if only for one afternoon‑‑is certainly a fitting way to commemorate the 284th anniversary of this county's founding. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage and to the Forest Garden Club, the local coordinator, for making this tour possible. Proceeds from the‑tour go to both state‑wide and county preservation projects. For more information., or advance tickets, call Mrs. Edward Raffetto at 627‑3877. Bay Bridge Day: April 27 Get your best walking shoes ready and your camera loaded with film, because on Sunday, April 27, you will have the opportunity to take one of the most interesting and exhilarating walks in the state of Maryland. Sunday, April 27, is Bay Bridge Day, the day when the eastbound span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge will be closed to motor vehicles and open only to pedestrians. Not only is the short hike across the Bay good exercise, but the view‑‑from 185 feet above the waters of the Chesapeake, on one of the engineering and construction marvels of the 20th century‑‑is nothing less than spectacular.
Marion L. Beall Long Beach, Calif. Mr. Bissell Mr. & Mrs. C.R. Embrey, Jr. Melbourne Beach, Fla. Mr. Embrey Joyce W. McDonald Lewisdale Mr. Aleshire Velma E. Brown Hyattsville Mrs. Wilkinson, Mrs. E.R. Lewis Myra B. Powell Hyattsville Mr. Cecil Joyce Rumburg Greenbelt Mr. Aleshire Mr. & Mrs. Theodore F. Dutko Bowie Mr. Aleshire Mr. & Mrs. Charles T. Douglas Adelphi Mr. Embrey Stewart H. Fisher Silver Spring Mrs. Wilkinson, Mr. Cecil Alan F. Ammen Chicago, Ill. Mr. DeMarr Freeman E. Morgan, Jr. Takoma Park Mr. DeMarr James F. Maher, AIA Hyattsville Mr. Aleshire
Society of Mareen Duvall Descendants And we are very happy to announce 3 new life memberships: Mr. Forrest S. Holmes, Jr., of Hyattsville Mr. and Mrs. J. Spencer Overholser, of Oley, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bourne, of College Park
Chairman, Pr. Geo. Hall of Fame 14605 Cambridge Dr., Drawer 699 Upper Marlboro, Md. 20870 The Hall of Fame has previously honored Thomas John Claggett, first Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and John Carroll, the first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in America. These two men were the first inductees in 1978. Last year, the Hall of Fame inducted John Roger's and Dr. William Beanes of Marlborough. Portraits and framed plaques honoring these four men currently are on display in the lobby of the County Courthouse in Upper Marlboro. The Hall of Fame was created by the Prince George's Chamber of Commerce and approved by the County Council but is a totally autonomous non‑profit body. An eleven member Board of Directors, originally designated by the president of the Chamber of Commerce is responsible for the final selection of its "residents." Members of the Board hold office for life. An affirmative vote of at least seven of these board members is necessary to admit a person to the Hall of Fame. The current Chairman of the Board is the Hon. Robert B. Mathias, former judge of the Circuit Court, and the Vice‑Chairman is John M. Walton. The Hall of Fame is currently seeking both financial and volunteer assistance from private industry, civic groups and individuals to enable it to support its continuing activities. Since the Hall is a non‑profit body and has no one continuing source of financial support it is important that contributions be obtained from every possible source. Volunteer support is also needed to, assist the many working committees. Potential contributors may contact Jack Long, Finance Chairman, at 927‑1000. Volunteers may call Judge Mathias at 627‑1690. All contributions are tax deductible. "A Conquered Country" Maryland, though she never seceded from the Union, suffered greatly during the Civil War. Her citizens were divided in their sympathies, rival armies marched across her land, battle raged on her soil, her sons fought and killed each other under different flags, and even in relatively calm times, the ever present Federal Army reminded Maryland that a war for the Union was being fought and her loyalty was suspect. Traveling through the State and recording his impressions of the war's effects in early days of 1862 was Edward Dicey, a young British journalist sent to America to report for MacMillan's Magazine and The Spectator. Dicey was thirty when he came to America, an ardent foe of slavery and a strong supporter of the North and President Lincoln. When he returned to England he reassembled and edited his serial reports on the war and published them in book form under the title Six Months in The Federal States in 1863. A successful career in journalism awaited him; from 1870 to 1889 he served as editor of The Observer of London. The excerpt below is taken from Six Months in the Federal States. Dicey was traveling from Philadelphia to Washington by train, on the B & O line that today runs through Laurel, Beltsville, College Park, Riverdale and Hyattsville. His geography is somewhat confused, as the Susquehanna River does not divide Pennsylvania from Maryland. However, and proceeded southwest from Pennsylvania to Baltimore, the signs of war began to appear after the Susquehanna crossing, so that great river became in his mind the dividing line between Maryland and the North. Below Edward Dicey on Maryland during the Civil War. "It was upon the banks of the Susquehanna river that I came first upon the track of the war. Between Pennsylvania and Maryland, between the free North and the slave South, the great deep river, wider than the Rhine at Dusseldorf, rolls as a frontier line. The top-heavy looking steam‑ferry, which, in defiance of all one's preconceived ideas of the law's of equilibrium, carries train, cars, rails, passengers, luggage and all, with scarcely a break of continuity, from one bank to another, transports one not only into a new State, but into a new country. The whole aspect of the scenery changes: the broad, thriving, cheerful expanse of carefully tilled fields, dotted over with the villa‑like farm‑houses, gives place to long, straggling, red‑brick towns, half villages, half cities; to broken‑down fences; to half ‑ploughed, hopeless‑looking fields, where the negro labourers are toiling listlessly; to dreary tracks of mud, which stand where roads ought to be, and to wide stony spaces of meagre brushwood. The restless activity I witnessed everywhere north of the Susquehanna was exchanged for a sort of fussy idleness. By the house doors, and in the streets through which the train passed slowly, there stood men hanging about idly, loitering languidly, with their hands deep‑buried in their trouser‑pockets, watching tumble‑down carts struggling spasmodically across the deep –rutted roads, and loafing visibly. “In‑this dull winter‑time, too, Maryland looked all the drearier for the traces of war, visible on every side. I passed along the same line again in the first burst of the early summer, when the war had moved on far away southwards; and, except for the look of poverty and decay, which even the rich summer foliage could not hide, I should scarce have recognized it for the same country. Hitherto I had hardly been able to realize, from the outward look of things, that the Union was in the midst of a civil war; but here in Maryland the evidence was only too palpable. At Havre de Grace, the river station on the southern side of the Susquehanna, we passed the first camp, and the dingy greyish blue‑coated Federal soldiers came running alongside the train to ask for stray papers from New York. Then, at each station as we passed further south, the train became fuller and fuller with soldiers, and the small roadside camps grew more and more frequent. In Baltimore the streets swarmed with troops, and south of this again on to Washington, we seemed to pass through a conquered country. In the grey glimmer of the evening we could see the white tents of the camps, pitched on the hill‑slopes that overhang Baltimore. Every roadside station was occupied with troops; at every bridge and crossing there were small outposts stationed; and along the line at short distances there were sentinels at watch to protect the rails. The nearest forces of the enemy lay some fifty miles away across the Potomac, and with the vast Federal army before Washington, it could not be against the Confederates that these precautions were taken. It is true that the maintenance of this single track of rails, the one means of communication between New York and Washington, was of vital importance and therefore, no precaution was too great to take, if necessary. On the other hand, the maintenance of the same line north of the Susquehanna was of equal importance, and yet there it was left unguarded. The inference is a very obvious one‑‑Pennsylvania is a Free State, and loyal; Maryland is a Slave State, and therefore disloyal. “It was thus, as I entered Washington that the bearing of the slave question upon the war was practically brought home to me. . . ." Six Months in the Federal States was not published in the U.S., until 1971, when Quadrangle Books of Chicago reprinted it under the title Spectator of America, edited and with an introduction by Herbert Mitgang. Over the years, scholars have referred most to Dicey's book for his recollections of his meetings with Lincoln. Dicey died in 1911. The above excerpt was taken from the 1863 edition. --Alan Virta Addition to the National Register The Maryland Historical Trust, in its newsletter SWAP for February 1980, announces the addition of another Prince George's County home to the National Register of Historic Places: "Wyoming, vicinity of Clinton. A, well‑preserved example of Maryland's gambrel‑roof colonial architecture, it is also noteworthy an excellent example of Southern Maryland Tidewater architecture." Wyoming was long the home of the Marbury family, and probably was built by Luke Marbury, father of the distinguished Revolutionary War officer of the same name. Takoma Park House and Garden Tour The eighth annual Takoma Park House and Garden Tour will take place on Sunday, May 4 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Two years ago, in honor of the opening of the Takoma Metro station the tour featured houses in the vicinity of the station. This year visitors will again have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the Takoma Metro neighborhoods in both Maryland and the District, and to see the renovation progress of some of the same houses as well as some homes never before opened to the public. The Metro area is the oldest part of Takoma Park, Washington's first planned railroad suburb. Benjamin F. Gilbert, a Washington developer, purchased about 90 acres of land on both sides of the Metropolitan Branch of the B & 0 in 1883 and built some of the community's finest houses, including his own (since lost to fire), near the tracks. Because the town has changed little since the turn of the century and because it contains many interesting examples of Late Victorian and bungalow architecture, Takoma Park, Maryland, (partly in Prince George's and partly in Montgomery County) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A similar application for Takoma, D.C. is pending. Advance sale tickets cost $3.50 each. Send a check made out to the Takoma Park House and Garden Tour and a self‑addressed stamped envelope to the Takoma Park Recreation Department, 7500 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park, Md. 20012. Tour goers may buy tickets at $4.50 each after 1 p.m. on May 4 at the Takoma Park Municipal Building, 7500 Maple Ave (near Route 410). Free tour buses will leave from the Municipal Building and light refreshments will be offered. Visitors can also see a slide show on residential stained glass in the lobby of the Municipal Building. Profits from the tour will go toward projects celebrating Takoma Park's centennial in 1983. For further information, call 270‑4048 or 270‑5348. ‑‑From a news release Soliciting Suggestions Although we try to cover a wide range of historical topics in News and Notes, we realize that it largely reflects the interests of those who produce it. For that reason, we solicit you for suggestions for future articles‑‑or for leads on potentially interesting documents relative to our county's history. Any member whose ancestors lived here in this county-‑do you have an old family diary with recollections of the Civil War, plantation life, agriculture, the building of our towns, social life in days gone by‑‑or old letters or other old documents‑‑that you think might, interest other members of the Society through publication in News and Notes? Let us have your ideas. Write to either Frederick DeMarr, President, or Alan Virta, Editor, at The Prince George's County Historical Society P.O. Box 14, ‑Riverdale, Maryland 20840 Thank you! Reminder: St. George's Day Dinner‑‑Wednesday, April 23‑‑U. of Maryland Spring Activities at Montpelier A busy calendar of events has been scheduled for this Spring at Montpelier, the colonial home of the Snowden family mansion, just south of Laurel. Tours of the mansion resume on Thursday, April 10, and will be conducted on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturdays from noon till 4 p.m. In addition to the regular tours, these special events will be offered. April 12: Harpsichord music by a student from Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, 1 to 3 p.m. April 17: Needle Workshop. Kits of all kinds available for purchase. April 26: Herb bread and tea. Garden workshop with movie, speaker and horticulturist. $1.50 per person. May 4: Annual Spring Festival, with music arts, and crafts at the house and Arts Center. Noon to 6, p.m. 10,000 people are expected; buses will carry visitors from Montpelier Shopping Center lot on Route 197 to the grounds. May 10: American Quilting Association demonstration and exhibit. 1 to 4 p.m. May 16, 17, and 18: 1st Annual Montpelier Mansion Antiques Show and Sale, $1.50 per person. This Summer, beginning in July, the Friends of Montpelier will sponsor a series of five Summer Evening Concerts, generally on Friday nights. Each night will feature a different type of music. Details will follow in later newsletters. "Prince George's Heritage" to be Available at Indian Queen Prince George's Heritage‑‑a superb history of the county from its earliest days until the year 1800‑‑will soon be available again for sale here in Prince George's County. Written by the late Louise Hienton, a longtime member of our Society, Prince George's Heritage was published in a first edition of 1000 copies in 1972. For the past several years, what's left of that first printing has been available only at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. Through the persistent efforts of member Bill Aleshire, however, a number of those remaining copies have been secured and will soon be on sale at the Indian Queen Tavern in Bladensburg. The price will be somewhere around 12 or 13 dollars. If you would like to reserve a copy, call Bill at 262‑5505. The Prince George's County Historical Society President: Frederick S. DeMarr, 277‑0711 Corr. Secretary : Edith Bagot, 927‑3632 Treasurer: Herb Embrey Editor: Alan Virta  NEWS AND NOTES FROM
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