St Marys City

Today we have internet access so we have several days of blogging events to upload.

Wednesday, October 21

(Ted) Today we take the dingy and travel a couple of miles back down the St. Marys River to St Mary's City.  Actually "City" is something of a misnomer.  As mentioned earlier, English settlers established the colony in 1634, not long after the founding of Jamestown and Plymouth.  It flourished as the capital of Maryland until 1695 when, for political reasons, the capital was moved to Annapolis.  Within a few years the city disappeared and was lost for over two hundred years.

Today there is a small, "honors" liberal arts college: St Marys College and Historic St Marys City, a National Historic Landmark and recognized as one of the most important  and well preserved 17th century archaeological sites in North America.

But I get ahead of myslf.  The college of St Marys was begun in 1839 as a finishing school for young ladies, later became a high school, then a junior college and in 1964 converted to a four-year, coeducational college.  We had lunch at the dining hall and the entry foyer was filled with plaques listing the names of Fullbright scholars from the school.  There must have been 80 - 100 names listed.  Not bad for a student body of only about 2,000 students.  Currently they have one of the best sail teams in America and compete all over the world.  Fortunately they allow visitors to use their dock for short term visits.  Here's a shot of the dock as we approach.

We were also treated to visits by the crew teams, usually late in the afternoon, but once at 4 in the morning.  They rowed up the river, along with their instructor in a jon boat, circled our boat (we were the only boat up there) and back again down to the college.  We could hear him barking instructions over a megaphone.

Ashore, we visited a reconstructed State House. 

As usual I was in the doghouse.

Fortunately I got a reprieve from the Governor (a handsome guy..  but he looks familiar).

There was also a 17th century tobacco plantation, inn and other reconstructed buildings as well as a number of archaeological digs taking place.  My favorite, of course, was the full size replica of the Maryland Dove a recreation of a 17th century square-rigged ship.  Similar vessels transported supplies from England and were used for coastal trade.

The Maryland Dove is a working ship that today sails to ports of call around the Chesapeake Bay to tell the story of Maryland's history.

The ship was capable of carrying 40 tons of cargo, and due to it's shallow draft was also able to transport the cargo up the rivers to small towns like St Marys.

I could easily imagine myself up in the crow's nest.

The ship has a wooden binnacle - a box designed to hold and protect the ship's instruments.  In this case, the instruments included a compass and a hourglass.

The ship carried  normal crew of 8 or 9 sailers and officers.  This is the officer's quarter's:

This is the ordinary sailors quarters.  Clearly it was good to be an officer.

Back on deck, looking forward.

It was a beautiful and exciting day.  Like Jimmy Buffett, I was born three hundred years too late.