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This is an unofficial travel guide and newsletter for Southern Maryland. Please visit us often.
Yesterday is a cancelled check; Tomorrow is a promissory note; Today is the only cash you have--- So spend it wisely.
My Favorite Oxymoron - "Rap Music"
This website is provided as a public service. I hope you find it an interesting place to pause while surfing the Net. It will be updated frequently, providing current information about this land of pleasant living. Thanks to Geocities-Yahoo for giving us the space. There will be more each time you sign on. Please feel free to email any information of general interest that you would like to have published here.


Nestled between the Patuxent River and
the Chesapeake Bay, there is not one spot in
Calvert County more than five miles from a
navigable tributary!

Interesting facts about The Chesapeake Bay

At 200 miles long, 25 miles wide at some points and 4,400 square miles the Chesapeake is the largest estuary in the United States. It's five times larger than the state of Maryland
The name "Chesapeake" is derived from the Native American word "Tschiswapeki."
The bay holds about 19 trillion gallons of water.
The population of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which stretches over six states, is 15.5 million.
The average depth of the bay is just 21 feet. Bloody Point, near Kent Island in the upper part of the bay, is the deepest part, at 174 feet.
More than 3,000 species of plants and animals, including 295 types of fish, call the bay home.
Forty-eight rivers and 100 small tributaries flow into the bay.
About 50 percent of the bay's freshwater comes from the Susquehanna River.
Sea level in the bay rises about 4 millimeters a year or 1.3 feet a century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Historians debate whether Viking explorer Thorfinn Karlsfennias (in the 11th century), Italian sailor Giovanni da Verrazano (in 1524), or Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles (in 1566) was the first European in the bay.
Early names for the bay were "Great Waters," "Mother of Waters" and "Great Shellfish Bay."
The biggest problem endangering life in the bay is an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus.
The bay is the biggest producer of crabs in the United States.
The most photographed lighthouse on the Chesapeake is the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, built in 1875.
The top sailing destinations in the bay, according to Chesapeake Bay magazine, are Baltimore, Solomons, St. Michaels and Annapolis.


The famous Calvert Cliffs, rich in fossils
Drumpoint Lighthouse, at the Calvert Marine Museum

Our Lady Star of the Sea, Solomons Island
Back Creek, Solomons Island

Getting supplies at Bunky's for a day of fishing
Cruising alongside a handsome sailboat on our way out to the river

A beautiful osprey protects her brood at number 3 marker just outside Solomons harbor
Flying the colors proudly out on the Patuxent

Dan cools off in the nettle pool
The skipper relaxes

A view of the Thomas Johnson Bridge from the east bank of the Patuxent River at Solomons Island. It links Calvert and St. Mary's Counties
A waterman harvesting delicious blue crabs

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Air Expo - Blue Angels Trip to Spain - June 2001
Browse our family album
History of Calvert County
Navy Cryptologic Veterans Association
Chapala Part 1 Calvert County Web Site
The Duffs
Community Theater
The Alumni Players. All proceeds from our shows benefit Our Lady Star of the Sea School Fine Arts Department. The school is located on scenic Solomons Island, Maryland. For information about joining our group and for reservations for upcoming productions, call (410)326-4322. Our next show will be in February 2009.
Lewis Family Genealogy		 Vacation Snapshots





January 2000 - Edie Woodburn's snow sculpture.

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"Let Osprey"
Drum Point, Maryland

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The Blue Angels Perform at Air Expo 1999, Patuxent Naval Air Station. Thanks to Keith Rice for the great photography.


Blue Angels - Shot #1

Blue Angels - Shot #2

Blue Angels - Shot #3

Blue Angels - Shot #4

Blue Angels - Shot #5

Blue Angels - Shot #6

Blue Angels - Shot #7

Blue Angels - Shot #8
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The Lewis Family

"Omne Solum Forti Patria Est"


Fielding Lewis and his more famous brother-in-law


Daniel Smith Lewis (1868-1930) Father of Virginia Lewis Hayghe, Grandfather of Dorothy Hayghe Smith, Great Grandfather of Bob Smith, owner of this homepage. He married Maude Jane Herbert circa 1890.

Since their arrival in the colony of Virginia in the early seventeenth century, the families of Lewis, Meriwether, Washington, and Warner, like other first families of Virginia, had intermarried a great deal. Given the extent of this intermarriage, it is probable that these families have produced a greater proportion of eminent statesmen, soldiers, and frontiersmen than any family in America. This layering of relationships was so complex that it drew wit even in the eighteenth century. The Virginia Gazette of September 23, 1775, published the following lines by a "Young Lady of Fredericksburg":

My husband's my uncle
My father's my brother
I also am sister unto my own mother:
I am sister and aunt to a brother called John,
To whom wit and good nature combined doth belong
This paradox strange as it may be to you,
Anyday that you please I can prove to be true.
N.B. - The marriage is lawful.


"Kenmore" in Fredericksburg. This home was completed circa 1775 for Fielding Lewis and Betty Washington Lewis, who were married May 7, 1750. Fielding was a widower, having first married George's cousin, Catherine Washington. The mansion contains the finest decorative plaster ceilings and chimney pieces in America. The rooms are furnished according to 18th century documents and reflect the life of the Lewis family, who owned the property until 1797. The Gordon family, who lived at Kenmore from 1819 to 1867, named the house for Castle Kenmuir, their ancestral home in Scotland. The mansion bears scars from the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg; and during the 1864 battle of the Wilderness, it was used as a Union Hospital. In 1881, William Key Howard bought Kenmore. His son, William Key Jr., restored and embellished the plasterwork with such skill that it is difficult to distinguish his work from that of the 18th century stucco man. A 1797 insurance policy and archaeological studies reveal the mansion was originally surrounded by many wooden outbuildings. To the south was the laundry, now the site of the Museum Shop (built in 1931). Behind the laundry were a dairy and storehouse. To the north was the kitchen, where the brick kitchen dependency (built in 1930) is today. Behind that to the north were the meat house and lumber house. When the Lewises lived at Kenmore, the plantation comprised nearly 1,300 acres and included a warehouse on the Rappahannock River and fields of tobacco, corn and wheat. Today Kenmore contains about four acres. The terraces of the falling gardens, to the east of the mansion, survive from the 18th century. These terraces, the Wilderness walk, and the Kitchen Garden feature varieties of 18th century and native plants found in Virginia gardens.

Some other prominent related families are Ambler, Ball, Barret, Bowles, Bushrod, Byrd, Carter, Cobbs, Crawford, Eppes, Fauntleroy, Fielding, Griffin, Howell, Isham, Jefferson, Kennon, Marshall, Piersey, Ragland, Randolph, Taliaferro, Taylor, Thompson, Walker, Willis, Woodson, and Worsham.
I am descendant on my mother's side from Fielding Lewis, who first married George Washington's cousin, Catherine Washington. She died only four years later and then he married George Washington's only sister, Betty. They lived in the Kenmore mansion in Fredericksburg in the eighteenth century, including the time of the Revolutionary War. The family has really spread since then. If you are a Lewis descendant, and there are many of you,please email me and let me know your connection and any genealogy material you would like to share. I'm particulary interested in information about my great grandfather Daniel Smith Lewis (see photo above), and my great-great grandfather, James Hollis Lewis.
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Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant



We're Proud to be a vital part of the economy of Calvert County.


The Calvert Cliffs Visitors Center is closed indefinitely due to national security issues.

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A Brief History of the Calvert County

In The Beginning

The original inhabitants of Maryland were descendants of prehistoric hunters who discovered the bounties of the Chesapeake Bay region 10,000 years before. The more settled tribes - Piscataways, Yaocomicoes and Patuxents - were living in Southern Maryland when the English settlers arrived in the 17th century.

George Calvert: Founding a Dream

The key figure in Maryland's settlement was George Calvert, Lord Baltimore I.
In 1627, Calvert petitioned Charles I of England for land around the Chesapeake Bay. He called the grant "Maryland" in honor of the English queen and envisioned a colony modeled after a medieval barony, with himself as the lord.
But along with economic motives, Calvert had a sincere desire to found a refuge from religious persecution. In an age of intense sectarian strife, the Maryland colonists would be free to worship according to their beliefs. When he had earlier converted to Catholicism, Calvert had been forced to resign his position as a Secretary of State to the Anglican King, James I. Now he was determined to enforce a separation of church and state in the New World.
George Calvert died before his dream became a reality. His son Cecil, Lord Baltimore II, inherited the Maryland Charter and immediately set out to finance a colonizing expedition headed by his brother, Leonard Calvert.
The colonizers set sail from Cowes on the Isle of Wight in November 1633. The following March they landed on St. Clement's Island in the lower Potomac where they made a temporary base while the expedition's leaders explored the surrounding countryside. On March 27, 1634, Governor Calvert established the first permanent settlement at St. Mary's City on land purchased from the Yaocomicoes. For the next 55 years the Calvert family ruled the Maryland colony as proprietors.

Calvert County

Although Captain John Smith was the first European to visit Calvert County, its early history revolves around Richard Preston. Preston, with a thousand other Puritans, left Virginia and sought religious sanctuary in Maryland in 1649. The Puritans eventually gained political power, founded Annapolis, and moved the capital from S. Mary's City to Annapolis (the City on the Severn).
Lord Baltimore II had encouraged the Puritan settlements, yet he was suspicious of their loyalty. Therefore, he established another county whose allegiance to him would be more certain. He chose an English relative, Sir Robert Brooke, to govern this new territory. The Puritans respected Brooke, a staunch Royalist supporter and Protestant. It was under Brooke's leadership that what is now Calvert County was permanently settled in 1654.

Trouble in the Seventeenth Century

In 1689, a growing dispute within the once peaceful colony erupted into a "Raising in Arms." The conflict stemmed from concern over single-family rule; the growing influence of a parliamentary government; and Protestant-Catholic rivalry for power. Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore III, would not grant the colonists' concessions, including more equitable taxation and some governmental control. So the British Crown set up a Royal provincial government. The new regime ended the Calverts' experiment in separation of church and state, the first in North America. For the next hundred years, Catholics had to worship privately.

A New Republic

The plantation economy established in Southern Maryland by the first settlers was still thriving when the American Revolution ended the Colonial Era. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read publicly at each county courthouse and a new Maryland Convention approved the first state constitution.

Notable Figures

Two Southern Marylanders signed the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Stone of Charles County and Charles Carroll of Anne Arundel County.
Thomas Johnson, became Maryland's first Governor and later was appointed as a Supreme Court Justice. Roger Brooke Taney, one of Calvert County's most famous figures, succeeded John Marshall as Supreme Court Chief Justice in 1836 and is best known for the Dred Scott Decision supporting the concept of states' rights.

War between the States

Like the country itself, Calvert County was divided by the Civil War. Although Maryland remained in the Union, the county sent its cons both North and South. When slavery was abolished, the region lost most of its wealth and labor force and had to end its southern plantation system.

Growth in the Twentieth Century

The beginning of the 20th century brought little change to life in Southern Maryland. Still recovering from the Civil War, the area continued to depend on farming and fishing for its livelihood.
Yet, with the outbreak of World War I, Calvert County began to change as many young men left to work in Baltimore's war plants, and record numbers enlisted in the armed forces. A period of vigorous growth began, bringing in new highways and the automobile to end Calvert County's nearly 300 years of isolation.
During World War II, the Armed Forces used Calvert County's waterfront areas for amphibious warfare training. By the war's end, the county had acquired sufficient capital to further its development.

The old and the New

For as much as it had grown, the region has clung to a quiet, rural way of life. Much of that life is centered around the Chesapeake Bay, a significant source of income for three and a half centuries. In recent years, recreational use of the Bay and its tributaries has drawn more and more people to its shore. Nevertheless, traditions remain strong, and Southern Maryland continues to preserve a distinct personality in an ever- widening world of conformity.

Modern Calvert County Community Profile

Calvert County in Southern Maryland is 45 miles west of Washington D.C. and 20 miles south of Annapolis. It has a land area of 213 square miles, and it is said that there is no point in the County that is more than 5 miles from a shoreline. The County population was 63,200 for 1995 and 75,000 is projected by 2000. It retains a rural character, yet services and retail are replacing agriculture and seafood activities. In season, Chesapeake Beach in the north is a busy fishing center. Solomons, at the southern tip of the County, is a busy sailing center with a deep natural harbor. The Thomas Johnson Bridge over the Patuxent River at Solomons links Calvert County with St. Mary's County.

Crabs of Calvert



By the 2nd Grade Class of Patuxent Elemenary School in Lusby
Ten to twenty million years ago, Calvert County was covered by a shallow ocean. Crabs swam in the shallow ocean, along with whales, porpoises, turtles, scallops and sharks. When these animals died, many sank to the ocean bottom and were covered with sand and mud. They became the fossils which we can still find today in the Cliffs of Calvert. The prehistoric Stone Crab was about the same size as the Blue Tip Crab we enjoy today. The Piscataway and Patuxent Indians caught crabs in nets made of vines. They cooked soft crabs in hot bear fat. Today we catch crabs using trot lines or crab pots, or by hand netting them.

Calvert County Climate

Yearly Precipitation (inches)...........41.5
Yearly Snowfall (inches)..................14.6
Summer Temperature (F)..................75.2
Winter Temperature(F)......................38.1
Duration of Freeze-Free Period.......235 days
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Smiles

I sat near the Duchess at tea,
It was all that I feared it would be,
For her rumblings abdominal
were simply phenomenal,
and everyone thought it was me!
Evidence has been found that William Tell
and his family were avid bowlers. However, all
the league records were unfortunately destroyed in
a fire. Thus we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.
The human cannon ball got tired of being in the circus.
He told the circus owner he was too old and too tired of being
shot out of the cannon across the circus arena night after night
after night. So he decided to retire. And the owner said, "You can't
quit, where am I going to find another man of your caliber?"

Anagrams

A challenging anagram is one that not only jumbles the letters, but jumbles them to make a phrase that actually describes the original object. Here are some simple examples:
THE EYES = They see
THE COUNTRYSIDE = No city dust here
SLOT MACHINES = Cash lost in 'em
ELVIS = Lives
DORMITORY = Dirty room
THE NUDIST COLONY = No untidy clothes
THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE = Nail biting refreshes the feet
SEAN CONNERY = On any screen
NORWEGIANS = Swen or Inga
A PSYCHIATRIST = Sit, chat, pay, sir
A SENTENCE OF DEATH = Faces one at the end
THE U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS = It's only for research bugs
THE RELIEF PITCHER = Fierce hitter help
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY = Army set is mainly educated at it
AH ! SPOTTING HOT NEWS ! = The Washington Post

Try your luck at these:
THE CHINESE RESTAURANT =
A DECIMAL POINT =
ASPIRIN TABLET =
ELEVEN PLUS TWO =
NINE THUMPS =
Rule: you must use ALL the letters. You are allowed to add some punctuation, for example, an apostrophe or a comma, etc.
Good luck.

Palindromes

Palindromes are more difficult to create, but quite easy to read. A palindrome is a word, phrase or sentence that is spelled the same backward as it is forward. Here are a few of my favorites, and then I will provide a link for you to explore even more.
Yawn. Madonna Fan? No damn way!
A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama!
Marge lets Norah see Sharon's telegram.
Cigar? Toss it in a can, it is so tragic.
Todd erases a red dot.
Go hang a salami. I'm a lasagna hog.
Click here to go to a fantastic palindrome site
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Helpful & Interesting Links

Ed Nelson's Navy page - with some pics of San Miguel, Philippines back in the 60's.

Keep It Simple Computer Training - 410-535-1545
The Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association- NCVA
Phone numbers for everyone listed in all the phone books in the United States
Email Directory
WSCL 89.5 - Listen to WSCL FM for great public radio and wonderful classical music!
One of my favorites is Prairie Home Companion on Saturday evenings at 6pm.
Visit Bay Lighthouses
DNR: Parks and Regulations
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