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.