Temporary View

After years of delay due to the collapse of the housing market, the apartment blocks across the alley were finally demolished to give us this temporary view of Eastern High School.

Southern Maryland

June 19, 2010: An afternoon in Southern Maryland.

Plumeria

Every year we purchase plumeria at the Philadelphia Flower Show and, at most, we get leaves. This year one of the plumeria skipped leaves and produced this blossom!

Abingdon Plantation at National Airport

June 14, 2010. Alexandria, VA was named for Scottish sea captain John Alexander, who purchased Abingdon Plantation for 6,000 pounds of tobacco in 1669. Two of his descendants gave part of the land for the establishment of the tobacco port city of Alexandria. In 1746 his grandson built a plantation house on a hill overlooking the Potomac. In 1776, George Washington's adopted stepson John Parke Custis purchased Abingdon so that his family could be near Mount Vernon. Abingdon is said to be the birthplace of Nellie Parke Custis, who was a favorite of her step grandfather George Washington. The Union Army occupied Abingdon during the Civil War. The house burned in 1930. The site is now preserved between two multi-story parking lots overlooking the terminal buildings at National Airport. In theory, it offers air travelers a little history between flights, but you never see anyone visiting the site!

Honda

June 11, 2010:
June 14, 2010:

A Baltimore Sunday

June 6: 2010: We started at the Baltimore's Farmers' Market, which has become much too popular!

We come for the produce and the plants,

but can't pass up the mini donuts, the kettle corn

and the mushroom fritters:

On our way to Patterson Park for the Polish Festival, we came upon this trumpet vine (l), this ceramic cat:

and St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church:
Modern statuary welcomed us to Patterson Park:













The Polish Festival surrounded the monument to Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski :









Polish dancers were performing:

After some pierogi, we left the festival, heading toward the harbor and wandered into the gentrified neighborhood of Canton:

Canton centers on O'Donnell Square, which features a statue of Irish sea captain John O'Donnell. In 1785, O'Donnell sailed into Baltimore with a cargo of tea, silk and satin from Canton, China and earned enough money to purchase a waterfront plantation which he named "Canton." His son developed the plantation into a neighborhood which become a center of commerce and industry in early 19th century Baltimore.

On the Canton waterfront is Maryland's Korean War Memorial:
































Oh say can you see the flag flying over Ft. McHenry from the Canton waterfront?
The Katyn Memorial of the mass murder of Polish nationals by the Soviet secret police in 1940:
And the iconic Bromo-Seltzer Tower:

From Upper Marlboro to Lower Marlboro

Southern Maryland, May 30, 2010: Although Marlboro cigarettes are represented by a rugged Western cowboy, the actual Marlboro country is the tobacco lands along the Patuxent River in Prince George's, Calvert and St. Mary's counties in Southern Maryland.

We started with a tour of Darnall's Chance in Upper Marlboro, the county seat of Prince George's County. Darnall's Chance takes its name from the original owner Henry Darnall, whose daughter Mary married Charles Carroll the Settler; Darnall's grandson Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and his grandson John Carroll was the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

About a third of the 20-acres Darnall's Chance was sold to a wealthy Scottish merchant James Wardrop who built the house c. 1741. In 1748 he married Lettice Lee who was the oldest child of Phillip Lee with his second wife Elizabeth Lawson Sewall. [Phillip, who had 18 children (9 by his first wife and 9 by his second), was one of the Virginia Lees; his younger brother Tom was the builder of Stratford Hall on the Northern Neck and his younger brother Henry was the grandfather of Light Horse Harry Lee and the great grandfather of Robert E. Lee.] In an age when it was common for a man to survive one or more wives, Lettice survived Wardrop and two more husbands!

An Italianate wood facade was wrapped around the house in 1857 and, in 1986 when the house was slated for demolition, the hidden brick Georgian House was rediscovered and preserved.

Mannequins representing family members and local dignitaries play cards in the formal drawing room; Lettice Lee Wardrop Thompson Sim stands in her downstairs bedroom:

The fireplace wall of the dining room has a closet and cupboards (l); the second parlor, used as a museum, has a model of the seagoing merchant vessel LETTICE:









View into the central hall from the staircase:
On the lower level was the winter kitchen (l) and the cold cellar which was 4 feet below grade:

Behind the house, the 6-3/4 acres extends to the western branch of the Patuxent River, which in colonial times was navigable to Upper Marlboro and is the site of the family vault:









Immediately west of Darnall's Chance is the 12-acre Schoolhouse Pond which is circled by a 3/4 mile boardwalk/nature trail. This is the view from the far side south toward the PG County Administration Building; Darnell's Chance is hidden behind the trees to the far left:

We saw a Slider covering her eggs:

An Osprey hunting over Schoolhouse Pond:

A brave Great Blue Heron:









One of several Mallards:

A Red-Winged Blackbird:

About 15 miles south of Upper Marlboro is the Calvert County community of Lower Marlboro, which became a port of entry in 1683 when it acquired a British tariff office. It thrived for 250 years as a tobacco port, before and after it was sacked by the British during the War of 1812.

The Methodist church and the Harbor Master's House c. 1670:

Patuxent Manor, c. 1750, was built by Charles Grahame, who was distantly related by marriage to the sixth Lord Baltimore and whose son married the daughter of the first elected governor of the state of Maryland. Grahame was active in the Revolutionary government of Maryland. The original interior paneling is in Winterthur.