Historic St. Marys City, Maryland, Part II

A continuation of yesterpost...

Our next visit was to the reconstructed St. Marys State House. The new state house was built in 1934. 

State House with extra "legal equipment"

In the field next to the State House are some instruments of punishment. Without a lot of jail space, people were often put in stocks or publicly whipped. The recreated stocks work fairly well!

A guilty gal

Good luck drinking that water

A shady character

The state house has several meeting rooms inside, one is set up as a court.

Court

The colonial seal includes an early motto, "Fatti maschi, parole femini." Roughly translated, it means "Strong deeds, soft words." 

The seal

The fireplace

Upstairs are smaller chambers.

A good spot for a committee meeting?

A committee of one?

Downstair is a plaque commemorating the first legal protections for religious freedom in the colonies. Too bad they put up a coat rack in front of it!

Showing their pride?!?

Next to the historic site is St. Mary's College, which was quiet in the middle of the summer.

College building

The field by the college had an old-style labyrinth (used for exercise, not for confounding the unwary) and a cemetery.

Labyrinth

Cemetery

A small path led down to a beach with a nice view of St. Mary's River.

Stairs that go down

Sand graffiti

A small memorial at Church Point

The river

A boater

Nearby docs

Back at the cemetery, we saw a memorial to Leonard Calvert in the middle of the cemetery.

Memorial to Leonard Calvert

Detail from the memorial

We went back to our car by way of the recreated 1667 Chapel. Next to the path we saw an old cannon.

Almost looks like a tree trunk

The Mackall Barn was built in 1785 and originally used alternately to store grain or cure tobacco (depending on what crops were growing). The capital had moved in 1695 to Annapolis and the area of St. Marys City wound up in private hands. The Mackall family bought the area in 1774 and owned it all the way to 1980, when the state bought the property. This type of barn was typical in southern Maryland but few examples survive.

Mackall Barn

The Brick Chapel was originally built in 1667 and was moved south by the Jesuits in the early 1700s. The Puritans took over the colonial government and rescinded the religious freedom previously enjoyed by all the citizens. The church looked too nice for Puritan tastes so the Jesuits removed the structure and rebuilt at a farm farther down the peninsula. A recreation has been built over the original spot.

The Brick Chapel

Interior

They know it is the right spot for the church because archeologists made a discovery. In 1990 they uncovered lead coffins, an extreme rarity in the colonies. They found out the three coffins contained Philip Calvert, his first wife Anne, and the six-month old body of what is believed to be the only child of Philip's second marriage. This sort of burial was used in Europe for royalty or nobility. Clearly, the Calverts saw themselves as local nobility. Since the lead coffins were soldered shut, the remains were well preserved and identifiable through forensics. The remains are now in the Smithsonian Museum and the coffins were returned to their original location in a transept of the church.

Where the coffins were found

All three

The church church was rebuilt by the Jesuits in 1785. The church of St. Ignatius is still standing though we were unable to visit it.

St. Ignatius Church

Historic St. Marys City is well worth visiting.