News and notes from

The exhibit will be open through February at the Maryland Historical Society's Museum and Library of Maryland History at 201 West Monument Street, Baltimore. Why not combine a visit to this exhibit with a trip to Baltimore's pride, the new Harbor Place at the Inner Harbor? The Society's gift shop, with a variety of gifts with Maryland themes, will be open during exhibit hours.

‑‑Adapted from the newsletter of the M.H.S.
The Winter Schedule
There will be no meetings of the Prince George's County Historical Society in January or February. The meeting program will resume in March.



Historic Sites and Districts Plan
A public hearing on the county's proposed Historic Sites and Districts Plan has been tentatively scheduled for the evening of January 13, 1981, in Upper Marlboro at the County Administration Building.
The Historic Sites and District Plan was drafted this year by a Citizens' Advisory Committee appointed by the Park and Planning Commission. The plan, together with an historic preservation ordinance it proposes, would protect Prince George's County's historic structures. Among the provisions of the plan and ordinance are regulations governing exterior alterations or demolition of historic structures, recommendations for tax credits for restoration and preservation work, and provisions for creation of urban and rural historic districts. The ordinance would create an Historic Preservation Commission to oversee the county's historic preservation plan. Among the commission's duties would be to maintain an inventory of historic sites, to act on Historic Area Work Permits (requests to alter historic sites), to advise the Planning Board on the protection of historic properties in zoning cases, to administer revolving funds and grant programs, and to recommend programs and legislation for the County Council and Planning Board. The plan identifies approximately 150 high priority sites, both publicly and privately owned. A secondary list of approximately another 350 sites identifies properties in need of more research with potential historic value.
Copies of the complete plan will be available for distribution in early or mid‑December. Details on distribution points‑‑probably county libraries‑‑as well as formal notice of the date and time of the public hearing will appear in the public press in December. For more information, contact the Park and Planning Commission at 952‑3514.
The chairman of the Citizens' Advisory Committee, Robert A. Crawley, is a member of the Society who was awarded our St. George's Day Award at the St. George's Day banquet in April. Several other committee officers, as well as many members of the committee, are, also members of the Prince George's County Historical Society.
Election Update
The election of 1908 was the last time Prince George's County had voted against the national winner of the Presidential contest until this year, when Prince Georgeans gave a majority of their votes to Jimmy Carter rather than Ronald Reagan. Our record, then, since 1856 (the first Democratic‑Republican contest), is 24 times with the winner, 8 times with the loser. Unofficial totals (without absentee ballots) reported in the Washington Post on November 6 were:

Jimmy Carter, Democrat 96,552 (52%)

Ronald Reagan, Republican 76,241 (41%)

John Anderson, Independent 13,801 7%)

Philip Thuma Ironton, Ohio Mr. DeMarr

Marilyn Baldwin and Tom Statton College Park Mr. Virta

George J. Coyle, Jr. Crofton Mr. Virta

Karen Marie Russick Rockville Mr. Coyle

Shirley V. Baltz Bowie Mr. Virta

Margaret H. Reilly Hyattsville Mr. Nairn


Addition to the National Register

The Maryland Historical Trust in its newsletter SWAP reports the following addition to the National Register of Historic Places from Prince George's County:

The most recent part of the house was built by Zadock Sasscer around 1850. The earlier portion may have been built by his father, William Sasscer. Pleasant Hills is located on Croom Station Road.

We regret to inform the membership of the deaths of two members of the Society.

Two hundred years ago the good planters of Prince George's County were offered some sage advice on the use and abuse of the spirit rum. All or nothing seemed to be the poet's caution: either stay sober and tend to your affairs or drink so much that you don't care anymore. News and Notes offers this "Rhapsody on Rum," reprinted from The Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North‑Carolina Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord, 1781, which was published in Baltimore.

Great Spirit, hail!‑‑Confusion's angry fire,

And like thy parent Bacchus, born of fire:

The gaol's decoy; the greedy merchant's lure;

Disease of money, but reflection's cure.

We owe, great Dram; the trembling hand to thee,

The headstrong purpose, and the feeble knee;

The loss of honor; and the cause of wrong;

The brain enchanted; and the fault'ring tongue;

Whilst Fancy flied before thee unconfin'd,

Thou leav'st disabl'd Prudence far behind.

In thy pursuit our fields are left forlorn,

Whilst giant weeds oppress the pigmy corn,

Thou throw'st a mist before the Planter's eyes;

The plough grows idle, and the harvest dies.

By thee refresh'd, no cruel Norths we fear;

Tis ever warm and calm, when thou are near;

On the bare earth for thee expos'd we lie,

And brave the malice of the frowning sky.

Like those who did in ancient times repent,

We sit in ashes, sad our cloaths are rent.

From thee a thousand flatt'ring whims escape,

Like hasty births, that ne'er have perfect shape.

Thine ideots seem in gay delusion fair,

But born in flame, they soon expire in air.

O grand deluder! Such‑thy charms art

'Twere good we ne'er should meet, or ne'er should part;

Ever abscond, or ever tend our call,

Leave us our sense entire, or none at all.


J.D.
Sweet Confusion


"Lost last Sunday morning, at or near Mr. Grant's TAVERN, in Market‑Street, a folded cover, in which was several Maryland Sixteen Dollar BILLS, of the old Convention Money, with some other Bills‑‑Also a note of Hand, which can be of no value but to the Owner.. ." ‑‑from the Maryland Gazette, August 15, 1776

Presumably the wee hours of Sunday morning.

The Prince George's County Historical Society
Annual dues, which are $5.00, include a subscription to this monthly newsletter. Send membership information to the Society at P.O. Box 14, Riverdale, Maryland 20840.

President: Mr. Frederick S. De Marr 277‑0711

4010 Hamilton Street, Hyattsville 20781

Corresponding Secretary: Mrs. Frank Bagot 927‑3632

3510 Longfellow Street, Hyattsville 20782

Treasurer: Mr. Herb Embrey 434‑2958

10414 Tullymore Dr., Adelphi 20783

Newsletter editor: Mr. Alan Virta 474‑7524

8244 Canning Terrace, Greenbelt 20770



NEWS AND NOTES FROM

The Prince George's County Historical Society

Vol. IX, no. 1 January 1981

Public Hearing on Historic Sites Plan
The County Council will conduct a public hearing on the proposed Historic Sites and Districts Plan on Tuesday, January 13, at 3:00 P.m. in the Council Hearing Room, County Administration Building, Upper Marlboro. The product of many months of effort of a Citizens Advisory Committee and the staff of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, the plan, if adopted, will protect the county's historic sites. A detailed summary was published in last month's issue of News and Notes, but basically the plan makes these proposals: the creation of an official inventory of historic sites, establishment of an Historic Preservation Commission, a permit procedure for exterior alteration or demolition of historic sites, and a system of tax incentives for owners of historic properties.
It is important that those sympathetic to the plan and the cause of historic preservation voice their support as certain elements within the county will be at the hearing to make a vigorous attack on it. Plan to attend if you can! The hearing is now scheduled to last until 5:30 p.m., but if more time is needed, it will reconvene at 7:30 p.m.
Copies of the plan are available at Park and Planning offices in Upper Marlboro and Riverdale. For more information, call Park and Planning at 952‑3514.
New Members of the Society
We welcome the following individuals to membership in the Prince George's County Historical Society:

Sponsor

Mr. & Mrs. Carl C. Schwartz Bladensburg J. McGraw

William J. Sandoval Clinton S. Cross

Mrs. Marie McRorie New Carrollton F. DeMarr

Mrs. Frances G. Hunter Beltsville M. Wilkinson

E. Lewis

Claiborne B. Beall Upper Marlboro F. DeMarr

Mr. & Mrs. William E Uber, Jr. Adelphi T. Bissell

(Continued Next Page)


PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, ‑MARYLAND

ERECTED ON ST.GEORGE"S DAY APRIL 23. 1696





Sponsor

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Anderson Oxon Hill A. Virta

Mrs. R.R. Waller Morrestown, N.J. N. Oren

Warren and Julia Rhoads Bowie K. Embrey

Mrs. Sarah J. Harvey College Park H. Hutcheson

Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin C. Miles University Park M Phillips

and F. DeMarr


Clarence McMillan
We regret to inform the membership of the death of Clarence McMillan of College Park, a member of this Society.
Donations to the Magruder House
Prince George's Heritage, Inc., the non‑profit organization restoring the Magruder House in Bladensburg, wishes to acknowledge the generous contributions of the following members and friends of the Prince George's County Historical Society: James G. Boss, Mr. Ashby H. Canter, Dr. Truman E. Heinton, Mrs. George McLeish, Mr. and Mrs. Bernard J. Nees and Mr. Eugene B. Roberts.
The Oath of Office
As all of official Washington prepares for the inauguration of a new president later this month, we look back to an oath taken more than three hundred years ago by local government officials here in Maryland. The following oath, transcribed from the Archives of Maryland, was the oath of the

sheriffs of the counties in Maryland in the early colonial era. The following is taken from Proceedings of the County Court of Charles County, 1658‑1666.

Prince George's County had not yet been erected, and the land which is our county today was divided between Calvert and Charles. The Sherriffwick, then, of Mr. Henry Addams, who swore to this oath on the 13th day of June, "in the year of owr Lord God Everlasting 1665,” included much of what is Prince George's County, today.
"You shall well and truly Sarue the Lord Proprietari in the office of a Sheriffe of the County of Charles and doe his Lordships Profits in all things that belongs unto you by way of office as far forth as as [sic] you Can or may you shall truly and Rightfully treat the People of your Sheriffwick and doe right as well to the poore as to the Rich in all that belongs unto your office you shall doe no wrong to any man for any gift fauour haet or other affection you shall dewly execute so farre as you may all such writs and warrants as shall bee to you derected by lawful Authority and thearof you shall macke a trew Returne according to the tenor of the Rite so helpe you God."

‑‑"At a Court held in Charleses County the 13th of June, A° 1665. "

A History of Prince Georges County

Prince George's County's proposed Historic Sites and Districts Plan contains, as an introduction, a brief, broad overview of the county's history written by Alan Virta. This work is an expanded version of a history he wrote as part of the program for the inauguration of County Executive Lawrence J. Hogan and the County Council in 1978. We publish the history, taken from the plan, below.

Prince George's County: A History
No one is sure when Man first set foot in Prince George's County. Some archeologists believe the first Indians came to Southern Maryland 5,000 years ago; others would say it was long before that. Whatever the case, this land was occupied for thousands of years before the first Europeans sailed to these shores. The first recorded visit to Prince George's County by a European came in the summer of 1608, when Captain John Smith sailed up the Potomac River, probably as far as Great Falls. Two groups of Indians inhabited the County in Smith's time‑‑the Piscataways, whose villages ranged from the Anacostia River southward into Charles and St. Mary's Counties‑and the warlike Susquehannocks, who roamed and hunted in the northern part of the County, constantly pressing the Piscataways for more and more land.
John Smith's visit in 1608 was an exploring expedition only‑no settlement was intended. Over the next twenty‑five years, English traders paid frequent calls upon the Indians here, sometimes to trade, sometimes to fight. But the most significant early contact came in 1634, just days after the first Maryland colonists landed near the mouth of the Potomac River. Advised by an English trader to seek permission from the Piscataways before establishing a settlement there, Governor Leonard Calvert sailed up the Potomac to the tribe's principal town, Moyaone, located on Piscataway Creek in the southern part of Prince George's County, Governor Calvert established good relations with the Piscataways, and with their permission he returned downriver to found St. Mary's City, Maryland's first settlement.
The Maryland colony flourished at St. Mary's City and enjoyed peaceful relations with the neighboring Indian tribes. Settlers soon left the confines of the original settlement. New counties were created, and within thirty years farms and plantations lined both the Patuxent and Potomac Rivers well into the land we call Prince George's County today. The land was not called Prince George's County then, however. The area along the Patuxent was part of Calvert County; the area along the Potomac was part of Charles County. By 1695, sixteen or seventeen hundred people lived here‑‑enough, Governor Francis Nicholson thought, to deserve the Wight of self‑government. The General Assembly agreed, and on St. George's Day, April 23, 1696, a new county was established, named for Prince George of Denmark, husband of the heir to the throne of England, Princess Anne. Extending from the Charles County line on the south all the way to the Pennsylvania border, the new county marked Maryland's western frontier. It remained the frontier county until 1748, when the westernmost regions were granted their own government, and Prince George's County's northern boundary became basically the line it is today.
Prince George's County grew in the 1700's. Its land was settled, and frontier became civilization. Men and women from all parts of the British Isles, as well as other countries of Europe, came to find homes here. Some came as freemen, others as indentured servants. Africans were also a part of the growing population, brought here to work as slaves. As the years went by, trading centers along the rivers grew into towns‑‑places like Upper Marlborough, Nottingham, Bladensburg, Queen Anne, and Piscataway. Merchants built stores, lawyers and doctors established practices; clergymen consecrated churches; and innkeepers opened their doors to travelers and residents alike. Some iron was even mined and worked in the upper Patuxent region. But Prince George's County, despite this growth, remained predominantly agricultural. Agriculture was the basis of‑the economy and directly or indirectly provided the livelihood for every resident. One crop was at the heart of this agricultural economy‑‑and that crop was tobacco.
Tobacco created wealth for Prince George's County, wealth that built fine plantation homes, educated the children of the leading families, supported the work of our religious faiths‑‑including, Maryland's established church, the Church of England‑‑and fostered the arts, such as theater, dance and music that flourished in Upper Marlborough and other places. That wealth also provided the means to enjoy leisure time in activities such as cricket, fox hunting, and horseracing‑‑and enabled planters to devote such care to their horses and their breeding that Prince George's County became the cradle of American thoroughbred racing, a sport still very much a part of our County today. Tobacco, too, provided modest livelihoods for smaller farmers, and even served as legal tender for debts. That one crop contributed more to Prince George's County than anything else, and created a prosperous, sophisticated tobacco society which traded its staple with English and Scottish merchants for goods from all over the world.
The tobacco society that was Prince George's County was not untouched by the great tide of national events during those years. When the Revolution came, Prince Georgeans organized county committees to assist the ‑Revolutionary effort here at home; and they sent many of their sons to fight gallantly for the cause of independence. One of their fellow citizens, John Rogers of Upper Marlborough, sat in the Continental Congress which in July of 1776 voted to make the colonies free and independent states. A Prince George's County native, Daniel Carroll, was one of the signers of the U.S. Constitution. In 1790, when the Congress in Philadelphia decided to locate the new federal capital somewhere along the Potomac River, Prince George's County ceded most of the land necessary to establish the District of Columbia. Today, each of the great symbols of our three branches of government‑‑the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court building‑‑stands on land that was once part of Prince George's County. The development of the federal city was aided immeasurably by Benjamin Stoddert of Bladensburg, who acquired much of the land needed by the federal government from local landowners and later served as first Secretary of the Navy. And as American religion began an independent life of its own in the new nation, two Prince Georgeans were chosen to assume roles of leadership. John Carroll of Upper Marlboro became the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States, and Thomas John Claggett of Croom became the first Episcopal bishop consecrated in this country. When the American Catholic Church formulated its first constitution, it met at White Marsh, one of the oldest Catholic establishments in Maryland.
The County had been spared extensive military action during the Revolutionary War, but such was not to be the case in the War of 1812. In August 1814, the British sailed up the Patuxent to Benedict and began a march through Prince George's County‑‑through Nottingham, Upper Marlboro, and Forestville‑‑all the way to Bladensburg, where they defeated an ill‑prepared army of American defenders and marched on into Washington to burn the capital city. on their way back to their ships, they seized a Prince Georgean, Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, and took him with them to Baltimore. Francis Scott Key was on a mission to plead for Dr. Beanes' release when he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry and wrote the poem which became our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.
Those early years of the nineteenth century brought changes to the County, too. Although tobacco remained predominant, farmers throughout the County began to experiment with new crops on worn out land. In 1817, the first county agricultural society in Maryland was founded here in Prince George's County, and agriculturalists such as Charles B. Calvert, Horace Capron, and Dr. John Bayne attracted national attention with their agricultural experimentation. The location of the nation's first agricultural research college here in the 1850's‑‑now the University of Maryland at College Park‑‑further attests to the leadership of Prince George's County in that field.
New developments were not limited to agriculture. A new way of working‑‑involving great machines, mass production, and hundreds of workers‑‑had evolved in ‑England and the North during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This new way of working ‑‑known as the Industrial Revolution‑‑crept into Prince George's County across its northern border with the establishment of cotton mills at Laurel in the 1820's. Further evidence of change came with the laying of the first rail line across the County in the 1830's and the stringing of the nation's first telegraph line across Prince George's County a decade later. In politics, two sons of Prince George's County achieved national distinction in those early years of the nineteenth century. Gabriel Duvall of Marietta sat for many years on the Supreme Court, and William Wirt, a Bladensburg native, served for twelve years as Attorney General of the United States.
Prince George's County, then, as the nineteenth century passed its midpoint, was prosperous, Its agriculture was diversifying, some industry was developing, the fisheries of the Patuxent and Potomac yielded rich harvests, steamboats plied both rivers linking the County to Baltimore, while proximity to Washington afforded a second market, and above all, the growth of the staple crop, tobacco, remained a profitable enterprise. In fact, more tobacco was grown here than in any other county in Maryland, and more slaves tilled the fields here than any other place in the state. The labor of Prince George's County's black community‑‑ percent of it slave in 1860, and comprising almost 60 percent of the total population‑‑helped guarantee that prosperity.
But the old tobacco society was to end, for forces beyond the control of any Prince Georgean would soon plunge the nation into a bitter Civil War. When that war was ended, the old Prince George's County was gone, and the County began a second life.

Some of the changes were immediately noticeable, such as the freeing of the slaves. Others were more gradual, like the changes in the County's economy. Agriculture remained the predominant way of life, tobacco continued to be the most important crop, and the large plantations by no means vanished; but as the nineteenth century drew to a close, small farms growing tobacco and a good many other crops played a larger role in the County's economic life. Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, the number of farms in Prince George's County doubled, while the average farm size decreased dramatically. Many of these new smaller farms were operated by‑freed blacks, but many more were owned by newcomers to the County. As our agricultural population grew, so did commercial life and the importance of local commerce in the overall economic picture.' Better roads and better rail service encouraged the growth of new towns‑‑places like Suitland, Lanham, Glenn Dale, Huntington, Hyattsville, College Park, and Brandywine. As Prince George's County entered the twentieth century, its population was thirty thousand‑‑thirty percent higher than it had been in 1.6,60. But this second life of Prince George's County‑‑of small farmers and local commerce‑‑soon gave way to a force that would affect this County as profoundly as tobacco had in the old days. That force was the growing, expanding federal government, and more particularly, its growing, expanding capital city, Washington.

Until the 138018, Washington was not much more than a small town tucked into one corner of the District of Columbia. There was much more farmland in the District than city. People had settled in Prince George's County because of its proximity to the capital, but on the whole, they were a small percentage of the population. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, however, the town of Washington became a city‑‑growing larger and larger until it spread into Prince George's County. All along the County's borders, towns were built‑‑like Takoma Park, Mount Ranier, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, Brentwood, Capitol Heights, Fairmount Heights, and Seat Pleasant. Farming remained the way of life for many in the vast rural areas beyond these new towns, but year by year the percentage of the population earning their livelihood through agriculture declined as the denser suburban population close to Washington grew.
The federal government itself moved out beyond Washington, as huge government installations were placed in Prince George's County‑Andrews Air Force Base, the Census Bureau complex in Suitland, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, among others. As the twentieth century progressed and the automobile freed suburban commuters from rail, trolley, and bus lines, new communities grew farther out‑‑Greenbelt Cheverly, District Heights, New Carrollton, Glenarden, Bowie, Kettering, and more. What had been a County of thirty thousand in 1900 became a County of sixty thousand in 1930. BY 1950, there were almost 200,000. Ten years later, in 1960, there were 350,000; in ten years more, 661,000. But finally the explosive growth came to an end, as the 1970s saw a small decline.
The end of the population boom seemed to bring a new assessment of Prince George's County's place in the region, for County leaders in the 1970's and early 1980's began to seek a new type of growth‑‑an economic life not so closely tied to the federal government, and one not limited to providing homes for workers in Washington. What they began to seek was industry and commercial enterprise that would assume a life of its own in Prince George's County ‑‑and transform the County from a bedroom suburb into an equal partner in a dynamic metropolitan area. The challenge of that search is a formidable, adventuresome, and exciting as the taming of the frontier so many years ago.
The witness of three hundred years, then, has seen great change come to Prince George's County. Once a struggling wilderness outpost‑‑where men like Colonel Ninean Beall and his county militia rode the frontier to guard against Indian raids‑‑the County developed during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries into a prosperous, sophisticated tobacco society. When that society met its end in war, the small farm, growing tobacco and other crops, and local commerce, became the dominant ways of life, until Prince George's County finally became part of the growing metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., and a place where men and women of all creeds, religions, races, national origins, and economic positions live and work. But despite these great changes, reminders of the past are all around us, amidst the new, sometimes hidden from eight# and sometimes unrecognizable to the newcomer. Even if the large majority of our citizens live in an urban setting today, it must be remembered that much of our land still retains its rural character, and agriculture is still the way of life for many. If Prince Georgeans of today head out of the city, beyond the Beltway and suburban developments) into the large areas that are still country, they can walk into the woods or along the creeks and rivers and see, if for just a moment, a Prince George's County that the first settlers might have seen more than three hundred years ago.

‑‑Alan Virta

Select Bibliography

Listed below are five general works which provide basic background information on the history of Prince George's County. These books, along with many others on more specific aspects of our County's history (including histories of particular communities, organizations, churches, and families) can be found in the Prince George's County Memorial Library system.

Bowie, Effie Gwynn. Across the Years in Prince George's County. Richmond Virginia: Garrett and Massie. 1947. 904 pages. Reprinted in 1975 by Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland. Biographies and genealogies of the County's oldest families, often tracing their land holdings.

Hienton, Louise Joyner. Prince George's Heritage. Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 1972. 223 pages. Very readable history of the County from its founding until 1800. Includes map of tracts laid out prior to 1696.

Hopkins, G.M. Atlas of Prince George's County, Maryland, 1878, edited by Frank F. White, Jr. Riverdale, Maryland: Prince George's County Historical Society. 1975. 48 pages. Reprint of an 1878 County atlas showing property owners, with an index.

Prince George's County Community Renewal Program. The Neighborhoods of Prince George's County. 1974. 483 pages . Development patterns, land use characteristics, and other information on the 72 neighborhood units of the County. Includes capsule histories of each, with emphasis on 20th century development.

Van Horn, R. Lee. Out of the Past: Prince Georgeans and Their Land. Riverdale, Maryland: Prince George's County historical 1976. 422 pages. Chronological account of events in the County's history through 1891, taken mainly from legal and government records and from newspaper reports. Includes S.J. Martenet's 1861 map of the County, and an excellent (though pre‑Bicentennial) bibliography of books and articles on County history.

Prince George's County Historical Society
Subscription to this monthly newsletter is included in the annual dues of $5.00. To apply for membership, write to the Society at P.O. Box 14, Riverdale, Maryland 20840.

President: Frederick S. De Marr 277‑0711

4010 Hamilton Street, Hyattsville 20781

Corresponding Secretary: Mrs. Edith Bagot 927‑3632

3510 Longfellow Street, Hyattsville 20782

Treasurer: Mr. Herb Embrey 434‑2958

10414 Tullymore Drive, Adelphi 20783

Newsletter editor: Mr. Alan Virta

8244 Canning Terrace. Greenbelt 20770 474‑7524

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