What community do you live in?

The place where we live is called our community. It is a place where many homes and businesses are near each other. People in communities help each other. Can you find your community on the map of Calvert County?

There is one town in each county where laws and
rules are made for the people who live in that county. This special town is called the county seat. The county seat of Calvert County is Prince Frederick. Find Prince Frederick on the map of Calvert County.

    It is very important to protect our environment.
 The Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay used to be
 home to many more plants and animals. People were
 once able to catch as many fish, crabs and oysters as
 they wanted. They will all disappear if too many are
 harvested.

   It is also important to keep the land 
and the water clean. What we do on land also affects
the animals that depend on the water to live.
       

      When it rains, some of the rain water goes
    into the ground to be used by plants.
      Extra water runs into drainage ditches and
    creeks. 
     The creeks run into rivers.
     The rivers run into the bay.
     When farmers began using plows in the early 
   1800's, it was easier for the soil to erode, and 
   wash into the rivers. This caused a lot of dirt, 
   called silt, to mix with the water.

     The rivers got shallower and narrower as
  the silt collected along the edges. Boats could
  no longer go as far up the rivers and creeks.

     The silt also made it unhealthy for the fish to
  live in the water.
     Fertilizers are chemicals that help plants to
  grow strong. If too much fertilizer is used by
  farmers or people on their lawns, it washes 
  into the rivers and can eventually harm the fish.

         

     











 What was Calvert County like before people lived
    here?
       Scientists and historians try to figure out what life was
    like on earth a long time ago by looking for clues in
    nature. They know about some plants and animals from
    fossils in the ground.
   
       Fossils are parts of plants and animals, or their imprints,
    that are preserved in stone.

       The Calvert Cliffs are famous for the fossils that can be
    found in them.
     

   Fossils are made many different ways.
 Sometimes fossils are made when fish die and
 sink to the bottom of the sea. Silt and mud
 must cover the fish quickly. After many years,
 minerals replace the bones and a fossil is
 formed.
 
  Footprints in mud can turn into fossils.

What kinds of fossils are found in Calvert County?
    Fossils of animals that used to live in Calvert
 County but have become extinct have been found.
 Many animals used to roam the earth but will never
 be seen again.

    Forty foot long sharks...

The largest modern great
white shark ever measured
was 21 feet long.

Extinct Mako Shark
  Found in Miocene to
  Pliocene layers
     

   Sand Shark
 Found in Upper
 Cretaceous to
  Recent layers
     

Extinct Tiger
     Shark
 Found in
 Cretaceous to
 Paleocene
   layers
     

Snaggletooth Shark 
Found in Miocene to
 Pliocene layers
     

A salt-water crocodile......

A mastodon.................

Found in the
       Pleistocene layer
     

  Mastodons were ten foot
high animals, like elephants,
that were covered with hair.
They ate bark, leaves and
other parts of trees.
     

  We know some dinosaurs lived
in Maryland because fossils have
been found. Parts of bones, teeth
and footprints have been left in
the soil.

   Scientists study these fossil
clues and try to imagine what the
whole animal looked like, and
how it lived. Because only small
pieces of Maryland dinosaurs
have been found, we don't know very much about them.

      Astrodon, a plant eater, is believed to be the most
common dinosaur that lived in Maryland.

    The first people to live where Calvert County
 is today are called Native Americans. Archaeologists
 believe that they began living here thousands of years
ago. Native Americans had their own way of living that
was very different from the way we live today.

   Native Americans lived by using the plants,
animals and other natural products from the land to
make their homes, their clothes, their medicines and
food.

   There were many groups, or tribes, of Native
Americans. The tribe was their community.

   The tribe that lived in Calvert County when
Europeans first arrived was called the Patuxent. The
Patuxent River is named after them. In their language,
the word 'Patuxent' means "at the little rapids in a
stream."

   They lived in a house called a
longhouse. To build them, they cut and
bent young, green trees to make a frame.

   Then the women wove mats out of
rushes, or used large pieces of bark to
cover the frame.

   They left a hole in the roof to let the 
smoke out because they built their fires
inside.

   They covered the door with a mat
that could be rolled up.

   They prepared corn to eat in many ways, just like we 
do. They even made popcorn.

   One way they made popcorn was by roasting dried
corn-on-the-cob on a stick. The pieces that popped and
landed on the ground could be eaten. But many pieces
landed in the fire!

   Each tribe had their own customs.
Some were friendly and traded things
they needed with others, and some were
war-like.

   The Patuxent were at war with
the Susquehannock tribe, who lived
near the northern part of the
Chesapeake Bay. The Susquehannocks
often attacked the Patuxent villages.

   Native American children played
many games, like archery, running
races, ball games and hoop games.



   Native Americans invented the game of
lacrosse. It helped them with running
and aiming, skills they needed for hunting.
     

Who was Captain John Smith?

How do we know about
John Smith's trip here?
States and counties didn't
even exist then.


  John Smith wrote stories
about many of his voyages to
America. He once described a
trip he made up the Patuxent
River. He said the Native
Americans of the lower
Patuxent area were friendlier
than others in the Chesapeake
Bay area.
     

   As he traveled up the Patuxent River, John Smith
described the high white clay cliffs on one side of the river,
and the low marshes on the other side. He said the water at
that time was "crystal clear and full of fish."

   Farther up the river, some Native Americans hid
themselves inside bushes. They followed the boat along the
shore and fired arrows at it.

   John Smith was able to make friends with some tribes,
but was attacked by others.

Smith once said
that there were
so many fish in 
the waters here that he
tried to scoop them  
out with his frying
pan.
     

    Captain Smith had several
 adventures on the Patuxent, then
 returned to England.
 
    His account of this Patuxent River
 exploration is the earliest known
 description of Calvert County lands 2
 the people who lived here.
 
    After explorers like John Smith
 learned about the land, more people
 came from Europe to settle in America.
 
    Different European countries
 fought each other to gain control of
 Native American's lands.
     

   The lives of the first settlers were
 very hard.
 
   It could take up to ten weeks of
 sailing in a crowded, dirty ship with
 awful food. Many people became sick
 and died from the conditions of the
 journey.

Two ships were sent with the first Maryland
settlers. The Ark and the Dove arrived in
1634. The passengers settled in what is now 
St. Mary's County, just south of Calvert County.

   The first settlers could not have
survived at all without the help of the
Native Americans, who showed them
how to live off the land. They showed
them how to hunt animals for food and
how to grow plants and vegetables. The
settlers also traded products for Native
American corn and other food.

When the Maryland colonists
first arrived they lived in the
same kinds of houses as the
Native Americans. After they 
had been here a while, some 
of them built wooden houses like 
this one.

   The colonists began by building
villages of their own, apart from the
Native Americans.

   Some colonies were established in
the North, like the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

   And some colonies were
established in the South, like St. Mary's
City and Jamestown.

   As more colonists came, their
villages spread out farther and farther
over the land. The Native Americans lost
their lands to the colonists.
     

 In the early 1600's there were no public 
schools. Wealthy families hired private tutors for
their children, or sent their sons to England to
study.

   The garden needed
to be tended, and 
the chickens needed 
to be fed.
     

   In the 1600's there 
usually wasn't a kitchen in 
the house. Cooking could
be done inside in the
fireplace or outside.

       There were no 
indoor bathrooms either. 
Chamber pots were used
at night but they had to be
emptied in the morning.
Outhouses were outside.
     

   In the early 1600's grants of land in
America were given out by the King of
England to noblemen who asked for it.
     

       George Calvert [c:1580-l632] was the first
           Lord Baltimore.  He asked for the original
           charter of Maryland, but died before it
           took effect.

       A title, like "Lord," was sometimes granted by
        the king to honor someone.
     

   When land was granted to
someone to colonize, it was called a
charter. The person who got the charter
was called "the proprietor," which meant
he was the manager and owner of the
land.
     

          Cecelius Calvert [1606-1675] inherited his 
          father's title, so he became the second Lord
         Baltimore. He also inherited the charter of
         Maryland and became the first proprietor.

       "Cecil" Calvert never left England. He
       appointed his younger brother, Leonard, to be
       the governor of the colony of Maryland.

   The proprietor did not have to
leave England. He could appoint a
colonial governor to oversee everything
for him.
     

      Charles Calvert [1637-1715], the third Lord
       Baltimore, was the second Proprietor of 
       Maryland, He was the son of Cecelius
       Calvert and Anne Arundell of England.

      Charles Calvert was the only proprietor to live
      in Maryland.

   As the number of colonists grew,
Maryland had to be divided
into counties to make it easier for the 
government to manage.

      Benedict Leonard Calvert [1677-1715] 
      was the fourth Lord Baltimore. He died
      shortly after his father.
     

   How many other Maryland county
names can you find from the
proprietors and their family members listed in this chart?

      Charles Calvert [1699-1751] was the fifth Lord 
      Baltimore and last Proprietor of Maryland. 
      He was only 16 years old when he became
      Lord Baltimore. His guardian made decisions 
      for him until he was old enough.  He later had
      a son named Henry Harford.
     

   After the tobacco was
harvested and dried, it was packed
into large barrels called hogsheads.
They could get hundreds of pounds
of tobacco into one hogshead.


   The hogsheads were moved 
from place to place by rolling them. 
The hogshead would protect the
tobacco from water and damage 
while it was being rolled or 
shipped.
   

    Soon almost everyone was
 growing tobacco and shipping it to
 England to sell, or trading it for English
 goods such as dishes, clothing, tools
 and other things that were not yet being
 made in the colonies. Tobacco was used
 in the place of money.

   Tobacco needed a lot of 
attention to grow properly.


   The tops of the plants 
needed to be pinched to make the
bottom leaves grow larger.

Tobacco seeds are very small.
This much will plant a whole acre.

Looking under the leaves for tobacco worms

.

  Tobacco worms attacked it
and had to be picked off by hand.
At first the colonists' children had
this job. Sometimes they let turkeys 
pick off and eat the tobacco worms. 

   The harvested leaves needed
to be dried, sorted and packed into
hogsheads. And thousands of
hogsheads needed to be built.

   Not everyone agreed with
slavery. People who spoke out against
slavery were called "abolitionists,"
because they wanted to abolish slavery.
Some abolitionists helped slaves
escape to places where they
could be free.

   There were no glass windows.
There were only wood shutters 
that could be closed to keep
 out the rain.       







   The slaves often built 
their own houses. The logs had 
to be cut down, shaped  and
put together. Mud and stones
packed between the logs kept the 
wind out and kept in the heat from the fireplace.

   There were few beds. Many
 children slept on mattresses on the floor.
 Everyone piled quilts on top of them,
 covering even their heads. On winter
 nights, snow would sometimes come
 through the cracks in the house and the
 people would wake up covered with
 snow.
   

   In 1680 and 1682, Arthur
Storer charted comets in Calvert
County where he was living,
"...at the River Patuxent near
Hunting Creek in Maryland."
The 1682 comet was later
named "Halley's Comet." Storer
may have been one of the first
persons in the world to report
studying it.







   Storer was a great scientist
because of the accuracy of his
work, even though he only had
very crude instruments to use.
He was famous in Europe but
almost forgotten here.

When was Calvert County
 established?

   Cecelius Calvert established
Calvert County in 1654. The county
name was changed to "Patuxent
County" for a few years, then the name
was changed back to Calvert County in
1658.

   After Calvert County grew, the
people needed a new county seat, a 
town where the leaders could meet
to make the laws and rules for the
county. Calvertown was the
first county seat, and was
located on the Patuxent River.





   In 1722 a place
called Williams Old 
Field was chosen as the county seat.
It was renamed
Prince Frederick, after the son of
King George I of
England.

                         The Calvert County seal

   In the 1700's, lots of new 
products were being shipped from
England, such as fine furniture,
dishes, and clothes.

  Different kinds of food were
now being shipped from all over the
world. It was very expensive to ship
some foods. Tea was so valuable that
people kept it in locked boxes.

Locked tea caddies held tea leaves.
People sometimes let their servants make
tea from their used tea leaves.

   Even in the late 1700's, products  
were mostly made by hand.
Laborers spent many hours making 
things like furniture and metal 
goods. Some families made a lot of
their own products for themselves
like soap and cloth. If you wanted
something in the 1700's, you either
had to make it yourself, hire
someone else to make it, or try to
get it shipped from overseas.

   It took many years of fighting to decide 
who would control America, but eventually the colonists won.

   The colonial times were over. The people were no longer colonists,
but Americans.

   At the time of the war there were thirteen colonies. The thirteen
colonies became thirteen states. The thirteen states united as one country
- the United States of America.

We celebrate Independence Day on the 4th
   of July.

   The first governor of the new
state of Maryland was Thomas Johnson,
elected in 1777. 

   Johnson was born in and grew up 
in Calvert County. He was a lifelong
friend of George Washington, who
became the first President of the United 
States in 1789. 

   Thomas Johnson was a successful 
governor and was re-elected two times.

   Johnson was later appointed as a
justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States. He was a member of the
group that established the Constitution 
of the United States, and helped plan 
the city of Washington, D.C.

   Roger Brooke Taney was born in Calvert County
in 1777. His family's home, Taney Place, is on a hill
overlooking Battle Creek.

   Taney became an important person in the new
government of the United States. He described
his life as a child in Calvert County just after the
Revolutionary War, in a biography.

   Because roads were not very good, he
said that families often traveled by boat on the
rivers to visit each other.
   
   By then there were some schools in
Calvert County. When he was eight years old,
Taney had to walk three miles to school where
he was taught reading, writing and arithmetic.
If the weather was bad, children stayed at home.
   
  When he was older he went to a more advanced
school ten miles from home, and later a tutor was hired to
live at his house and teach all the children.

Taney made many famous decisions, and swore-in seven United States presidents.

   In 1792 Taney traveled by boat to Baltimore
and then hitched a ride on a farm wagon to a college
in Pennsylvania where he studied law. Traveling was
so difficult that he only went home once during the
three years he was at college.

  Taney later moved to Northern Maryland to
practice law. He was so successful that during his
life he became the Attorney General of Maryland,
Attorney General of the United States, Secretary of
the Treasury, and then Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States.

   From Calvert County the British soldiers marched north. 
There were terrible battles in and around Washington D.C.
Much of Washington was burned during the war. 
The people of Baltimore, however, were able to
drive the British out.

   A treaty was finally signed on Christmas Eve in 1814
stating that Britain and the U.S. would go back to the 
way things were before the war.

   In the early 1800's people still
took boats on the rivers to visit
other families and cities.        

The Eagle was 130 feet long and 22 feet wide. It went 5 miles per hour.

   Steamships allowed people
from isolated farmlands to visit
the big cities, and products
manufactured far away could get 
to people who wanted them. 

   Wharves, where the 
steamships docked, were exciting
places for people to meet, greet 
passengers, and watch new 
products being unloaded.

   For short trips, people walked and
rode horses over the land. Oxen pulled
wooden carts to carry produce to
markets. Some people had other types
of horse-drawn vehicles to ride in.

         The Horse and Buggy
This was used by families in the late 1800 's and early 1900 's.

There were many dirt roads, but they were still not very good. Wheels cut deep grooves in them, and when it rained they were full of mud. Many accidents happened when a wheel got stuck on the road causing the buggy to overturn.

   Steam locomotives were one of
the most important new developments
and were beginning to be used in
America in the 1830's.

  Railroads allowed people and
products to move over land easier than
ever before. They connected large cities
in the East with remote areas being
settled in the West.

   Margaret Mackall Smith was born
in St. Leonard, in Calvert County. While
in Kentucky visiting her sister, she met a
soldier named Zachary Taylor. They
were married and later had six children.
Zachary Taylor became the 12th
President of the United States in 1849,
and the family moved to the White
House.

   The differences in the way
people lived in the beginning of
the century and at the end of the
century were enormous.

   In the early 1800's, the
Industrial Revolution changed life
forever. New machines were
invented that made products
quickly and cheaply in factories.
No longer did many things have to
be made by hand.

   More people could now
afford products that made their
lives easier. Almost anything could
be bought in a store or ordered
from a catalog.

   In the 1800's, improved
printing presses made information
and knowledge available to more
people than ever before.

   Because it was now easier to
travel around the country, people
could talk with others who had
different ideas and ways of living.

   More and more schools were built.

   Albert Gantt was a slave at Parker's Wharf in
Calvert County. During the Civil War, his owner gave him
permission to join the Union Army as a soldier, and said
he could return after the war.
   
   After fighting in many important battles, he returned
home to where he had once been a slave.
   
   He was given a place to live in return for catching
fish and oysters. He fished for a while, then worked on
the farm for many years.

   Because of his hard work and skills he was later given
a high-paying job in Baltimore, registering ships
that came into Baltimore harbor.

   With his savings he bought some land, and with his
wife Aleitha, worked to make it a very successful farm.

   A leader of the African American community in
Calvert County, he was a decorated veteran in the Army, a
church leader, a prominent land owner, and a successful farmer.

   Albert Gantt became successful during a time of
discrimination against African Americans.

   In 1867 Captain Isaac Solomon
established a commercial fishery in
southern Calvert County. The area later
became known as "Solomons Island,"
then "Solomons." Hundreds of ships
were built there and Calvert County
seafood was shipped all over the East
Coast. Solomon also built the first oyster
house on the Patuxent River, a cannery
that packed the oysters.
   
   Ships built in the Chesapeake
Bay area are famous throughout Europe
and America. Ships have always been
important to the people of Calvert
County because there are so many rivers
and waterways.

   The first settlers used the rivers as
"roads" to get around because the land 
was covered with woods. Later, fishing 
and harvesting seafood became 
an important industry. Fishermen needed
boats in order to do their job.

Engraving by Theodore DeBry, after a watercolor by John White, Library of Congress

   When the first explorers and
settlers arrived here, they learned to
make dugout log canoes from the Native
Americans. The colonists later improved
upon the design of the canoes, making
them out of several logs instead of just
and adding sails.

Dredging oysters

   In 1894, Willis Overton and his
brother patented a fish processing
machine to be used in their fish factory
near Solomons.

   The machine carried the fresh fish
along a conveyor belt through a cooking
tunnel where they were steamed.

   The fish later traveled up to
rollers, where they were pressed to
release their fish oil.

   Then the flattened fish went to a
place to be steam dried. A vent caused
the smell of the fish to drift all over
town!

   The dried fish product was used
by farmers as fertilizer.

   In the late 1800's crabbers began using trotlines. They 
took a rope and tied pieces of salted eel to it every few feet.
   
   After the rope was in the water, the crabs would come up to eat
the eel. The crabbers lifted the trotline up to the boat and caught the
crabs with a net. This is the oldest method of harvesting crabs that is still used today.

   
                                       Shucking oysters. 

A crab pot.

   The Chesapeake Bay has also
been a good place to catch fish. From
1900 to the 1950's, pound net
fishing was very popular at Flag
Ponds in Calvert County. While
most of the coast had high cliffs
along the shore, the land at Flag
Ponds was very flat.



  The fishermen could bring
the catch right from their nets
onto land to be shipped to Balti-
more by trucks.

  Mostly herring, shad and
rockfish were caught, but some
fishermen reported finding
sharks and sea turtles in then-
nets.
   

Captain Todd built this shanty 
that you can still visit today. 

   The fishermen lived on the shore in shanties 
during the spring and summer while they were working 
their nets.

   A square pen, called a "pound" was built out of
   nets and put in the water.

   Other nets, called the "false
pound" and "leader," guided the fish to
swim into the pound.
   
   At low tide the fishermen would
bring their boats up to the pound and
scoop out the fish.
  
  A pound net could catch up to
50,000 fish at a time.

Pound Net.

   The fire spread from building to building, destroying homes,
offices, the county newspaper building, stores, and the Brentwood
Hotel, then the largest hotel in Southern Maryland.

   Only one thing was saved from the hotel: a grandfather clock
that someone had carried out. According to a newspaper account,
the clock stopped at 4:10 p.m., showing that the fire only lasted
about an hour.

    Most of the very oldest records dating back to the county's
early settlement were in the courthouse.

   The loss of the records was a
major disaster because they listed names 
and information about the people 
throughout history who lived in Calvert 
County, the land and things they owned,
and the decisions of the court.

   To make matters worse, those
few documents that Sollers saved were
destroyed in another fire at a temporary
courthouse four months later.

   All of Calvert County's records
before 1882 were lost in the two fires.

   After the fire, only four buildings
in the entire town of Prince Frederick
were left standing.

   The present-day courthouse 
was built in 1915. It was
renovated and expanded over
the years. In 1991 a new wing
was added. The old courthouse 
was located on what is now the front lawn.

In many households, each bed would have
two mattresses. One fitted with shredded
corn shucks, which was cooler, and one filled
with feathers, which was warmer. In the summer
the corn shuck mattress would be put on top.
In the winter the feather mattress would be put
on top.

   Vegetables were sometimes buried
in the ground, wrapped in straw, to
preserve them for a long time.

   They had orchards of apples,
peaches and pears, and collected wild
blueberries. They also had a grape arbor
for food and for shade. The grapes
would be used to make jam.

   In late November, families who
had hogs would kill them and store the
meat in the meat house. A few months
later the meat was smoked over a fire of
apple wood or sassafras to preserve it,
then hung back in the meat house for
storage.

   Water for drinking was collected by hand from springs or wells.
Buckets were filled and carried back to the house.

   A spring was a place where fresh water came up out of the 
ground by itself. A well is a deep hole that people have dug to
find underground water. A hand pump or a bucket on a rope was
used to get water out of the well.

Rainwater was collected in barrels and used for washing clothes.

   Before refrigerators, people
used ice houses, spring houses, 
or buried food underground,
like at Ben's Creek.

   Farm machines were
invented to make the work easier,
even though horse and ox-drawn
plows were still being used by
many farmers.

   William Sampson Brooks was
born in 1865 in Calvert County. He 
became a distinguished pastor, servingin 
several African Methodist Episcopal
churches all across the United States.

   He believed in the value of
education and helped raise money for
churches and schools.

   W. Sampson Brooks also traveled
to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
He learned to speak Swedish and
preached in that language in Sweden.

   Brooks was very famous as a
speaker and a writer. His book,
Footprints of a Black Man, describes his
trip to Jerusalem.

   Students in all the grades sat
together in the one room school house. 
The children became close, like family.  
Older students helped the younger students 
with their lessons. 

   Most one room school house teachers
were women. One teacher taught all the grades. 
Everyone had to learn reading, writing, 
arithmetic, and morals. If the teacher 
knew other subjects, she could teach them 
to older students. Topics like bookkeeping,
algebra, Latin, German and philosophy were 
taught in some Calvert County schools.

Boys brought buckets of waterfrom a nearby well. Anyone could take a drink from the bucket using a dipper or a cup.

What town in
Calvert County is this?

Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum

  In the old days, before air
conditioning or even electric fans,
people liked to go outdoors in the 
summer and have fun.

  To make a fun place for 
people to take their vacations, the 
owners of the Chesapeake Beach 
resort built a boardwalk. At first it
was built far out over the water,
with games, amusements and 
restaurants on top of it.

Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum

Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum

   Over the years the resort
changed in many ways. The
boardwalk and amusements suffered
storms and fires. After cars became 
popular, people had more freedom to
go to other places farther away. The 
Great Depression badly affected 
many businesses, including the  
railroad business. The Chesapeake
Beach Railway closed in 1935.


   By this time, the amusement
park had moved to the land.
However, it eventually closed in
1972. Everything was torn down
except the original railway station.
Today there are homes where the 
amusement park used to be.

The Chesapeake Beach railway station is now a museum

   The town of North Beach 
was developed about the same 
time as Chesapeake Beach. It
was incorporated as a town in 
1910. A trolley used to take 
passengers between
Chesapeake Beach and North
Beach. The "Twin Beaches" are 
the only two incorporated towns 
in Calvert County today. That 
means that they each elect 
mayors and town councils. 
North Beach today boasts a 
boardwalk and pier that are 
pleasant reminders of the 
"good old days."

Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum

Teacher

   Up to 1938 African American
teachers in Maryland were not paid the
same as other teachers.

   Until the 1960's, African Americans
had to go to separate schools apart from 
other students. 

   Harriet Brown from Calvert 
County filed a lawsuit in 1937 that led to
equal pay for African American teachers
in Calvert County, and then the state.

   Harriet Brown is one of five 
women in the Maryland Women's Hall of
Fame for her contribution to the rights of
African Americans in Maryland.

County Commissioners

   Calvert County government
experienced a first in 1981 when 
Jesse Reid was appointed a county 
commissioner. He was the first African 
American to hold the position. In 1990, 
Michael Moore was the first African 
American to be elected county 
commissioner. Both men served their
county as strong businessmen before
and after their official government positions.

Sheriff

   When Vonzell Ward was growing 
up in Chesapeake Beach, he loved to
watch police cars going by his house.
He knew he would become a policeman 
one day and have his own police car. 
After graduating from Calvert High, he 
did just that. He joined the Maryland
State Police in 1974. 

   Twenty years later, in 1994, after 
many experiences, Vonzell Ward made
Calvert County history when he was
elected sheriff. He was the first African
American to hold that position. 

   Sheriff Ward is a good example of 
how hard work and determination can
more than fulfill a child's dream.

Author

   Tom Clancy, local resident,
worked for many years as an insurance
broker in Owings. He became famous
worldwide in 1984 with the publication
of his first novel, The Hunt for Red
October. He has published many books
since that time and continues to live
with his family in Calvert County.

   Mary Dolly Harrison lived on the 
family farm in Owings her entire life,
1917-1987. She was educated in Calvert
County Public Schools. The first school
she attended was a one room school
house on Grover's Turn Road in
Owings. Not far from that site of long
ago, stands today the Mary D. Harrison 
Cultural Arts Center. It was named in
honor of Miss Harrison because she was
an outstanding leader in her community 
and because she strongly believed that
cultural arts were an important part of
education.

    Mary D. Harrison was the first
woman in Calvert County to be elected
to the position of county commissioner.
She ran for the office when she was 61
years old and was elected twice.

   Miss Harrison was also a 
businesswoman. She worked in the 
lumber business for 50 years, including
owning her own company - the Owings
Lumber Company. 

  Miss Harrison is also remembered 
for her love of nature and historical 
heritage of Calvert County.

   Louis Lazarus Goldstein was born
in 1913 to Belle and Goodman Goldstein
of Prince Frederick. His parents
emigrated from East Prussia and Latvia,
and eventually settled in Calvert County.

   Louis' father peddled housewares
door-to-door. His business later became
the Prince Frederick Department Store,
which was located where the
Courthouse Annex is today. When Louis
was a child, he and his brothers and
sister all worked in the family store,
which sold everything from shoes to
horses.

   In 1939, Louis Goldstein was 
elected state delegate from Calvert
County. During World War II he served 
in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was elected 
state senator in 1947. In 1958 he was
elected state comptroller of the Treasury and has 
held that position ever since. Comptroller Goldstein has
held a statewide elected office longer than anyone in
Maryland's history.

   The Calvert County flag was
developed in 1966. Until that time there 
had been no official county flag. The
flag has the gold and black bars from the
Arms of Calvert. A green tobacco leaf is 
in the center, because tobacco was
important to the early Calvert Countians
and it represents growth.

The Calvert County Seal

   The purple martin is the county
bird. Its name comes from the male's
glossy dark purplish-blue feathers. The
females and young have gray feathers
underneath. 

   Many people today build houses
for the birds to nest in, so they can enjoy
watching them. Long ago, several tribes 
of Native Americans in the South hung 
clusters of hollow gourds in their 
villages to attract purple martins.

   The bald cypress is the county
tree. It is an unusual tree that likes to
live in swamps. It has a broad bottom
and can grow 150 feet tall and 17 feet
wide. The roots of the tree come out of
the ground near the bottom of the trunk
and make small rounded humps called
"knees."

   The bald cypress is a conifer,
which are types of trees (like pines) that
usually keep their leaves on all winter.
The cypress drops its leaves in the fall,
giving it the name "bald."
   
   The wood of the bald cypress
does not rot very fast. It has always been
prized wood for building ships, barn
siding, and fence posts.

   During colonial times there were
many places where bald cypress could
be found, but people cut down almost
all of the trees.

   Today, there are only a few places
to see them, such as the Battle Creek
Cypress Swamp Nature Center in Calvert
County.

   Very old cypress fossils were found
   at Calvert Cliffs. 

   The American foxhound is 
the county dog.  

   Foxhounds are medium-sized 
dogs that can run fast and long.
Because of these abilities, packs of
foxhounds have been used for 
hunting foxes since colonial times.
Fox hunting was a popular sport in
England and America at one time. 

  George Washington, the first
President of the United States,
owned several foxhounds. 

   The American foxhound and
the English foxhound are separate 
breeds.

   The mountain laurel is the
county flower.

   Mountain laurel is a beautiful
flowering shrub native to the woods of
the Eastern United States. It keeps its
leaves all winter, so it is easy to spot on
the forest floor.

   Mountain laurel blooms in late
spring with light rose to white flowers
that are sticky to the touch.

   Mountain laurel can grow to over
ten feet high.

hun-dred might-y years a-go, the Cav-a-liers, they came, in-to

   The county song was published
in 1954 for the 300th anniversary of 
Calvert County. It was written by Gladys
E. Mogck (now Gladys Mogck Brown),
and is titled "Cavaliers of Calvert."

   The Maryland State flag
combines the black and gold of the
Arms of Calvert, with the red and white
cross of the Arms of Crossland. Leonard
Calvert and Ann Crossland were the
parents of the first Lord Baltimore,
George Calvert, who received the 
original charter of Maryland.

   The black-eyed Susan is the  
Maryland State flower. It is a plant 
that was found in Maryland and Calvert
County when the first settlers arrived.Its
black and yellow flowers were sent back 
to England to be studied. Today you can 
still find the black-eyed Susan growing
on the side of the road in some places. 

   Jousting is the Maryland State sport. It is a
game that knights played long ago. Two knights
would ride their horses at each other very fast, and 
try to spear each other with long poles, called
lances. The winner was the knight who could stay
alive and on his horse.

   Today, jousters try to spear small rings with
their lances, instead of each other. The rider who
can spear the most rings is the winner.

   Jousting is a sport that is not well-known outside
of Maryland, but each year there are more
than 50 tournaments in our state. There is a jousting
tournament each August at Port Republic, in Calvert
County, sponsored by Christ Church.