Northward from Old Point Comfort and Hampton Roads the great Chesapeake Bay stretches for two hundred miles. It bisects Virginia and Maryland, and receives the rivers of both States, extending within fourteen miles of Pennsylvania, where it has as its head the greatest river of all, the Susquehanna, which the Indians appropriately called their "great island river." Its shores enclose many islands, and are indented with innumerable bays and inlets, the alluvial soils being readily adapted to fruit and vegetable growing, and its multitudes of shallows being almost throughout a vast oyster bed. It has, all about, the haunts of wild fowl and the nestling-places of delicious fish. These shores were the home—first on the eastern side and afterwards on the western—of the Nanticokes, or "tidewater Indians," who ultimately migrated to New York to join the Iroquois or Five Nations, making that Confederacy the "Six Nations." From Cape Charles, guarding the northern entrance to the Bay, extends northward the well-known peninsula of the "Eastern Shore," a land of market gardens, strawberries and peaches, which feeds the Northern cities, and having its railroad, a part of the Pennsylvania system, running for miles over the level surface in a flat country, which enabled the builders to lay a mathematically straight pair of rails for nearly ninety miles, said to be the longest railway tangent in existence.
Chesapeake Bay is now patrolled by the oyster fleets of both Virginia and Maryland, each State having an "oyster navy" to protect its beds from predatory forays; and occasionally there arises an "oyster war" which expands to the dignity of a newspaper sensation, and sometimes results in bloodshed. The wasteful methods of oyster-dredging are said to be destroying the beds, and they are much less valuable than formerly, although measures are being projected for their protection and restoration under Government auspices. We are told that a band of famished colonists who went in the early days to beg corn from the Indians first discovered the value of the oyster. The Indians were roasting what looked like stones in their fire, and invited the hungry colonists to partake. The opened shells disclosed the succulent bivalve, and the white men found there was other good food besides corn. All the sites of extinct Indian villages along the Chesapeake were marked by piles of oyster shells, showing they had been eaten from time immemorial.
The English colonists at Jamestown were told by the Indians of the wonders of the "Mother of Waters," as they called Chesapeake Bay, about the many great rivers pouring into it, the various tribes on its shores, and the large fur trade that could be opened with them; so that the colonists gradually came to the opinion that the upper region of the great bay was the choicest part of their province. Smith explored it and made a map in 1609, and others followed him, setting up trading-stations upon the rivers as far as the Potomac and the Patuxent. Soon this new country and its fur trade attracted the cupidity of William Claiborne, who had been appointed Treasurer of Virginia, and was sent out when King James I. made it a royal province, the king telling them they would find Claiborne "a person of qualitie and trust." He was also agent for a London Company the king had chartered to make discoveries and engage in the fur trade. Claiborne, in 1631, established a settlement on Kent Island, the largest in the bay, about opposite Annapolis, and one hundred and thirty miles north of the James, which thrived as a trading station and next year sent its burgesses to the Assembly at Jamestown.
CALVERT AND MARYLAND.
Sir George Calvert, who had been private secretary to Lord Cecil in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and also held office under King James, upon retiring was created Baron of Baltimore in Ireland, and purchased part of Newfoundland, which he called Avalon. He sent out a colony and afterwards visited Avalon; but, being discouraged by the cold climate, he abandoned the colony, and persuaded the next king, Charles I., to give him land on both sides of Chesapeake Bay north of the Potomac. Before the deed was signed, however, Baron Baltimore died, and his son, Cecilius Calvert, succeeded him and received the grant. This was one of the greatest gifts of land ever made, extending northward from the Potomac River, including all Maryland, a broad strip of what is now Pennsylvania, all of Delaware, and a good deal of West Virginia. The charter made the grant a Palatinate, giving Lord Baltimore and his heirs absolute control of the country, freedom to trade with the whole world and make his own laws, or allow his colonists to do this. The price was the delivery of two Indian arrows a year at the Castle of Windsor, and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found. This grant was dated on June 20, 1632, and the name first intended by Calvert for his colony was Crescentia; but in the charter it was styled Terra Mariæ, after Queen Henrietta Maria, or "Mary's Land." The expedition came out the following winter, leaving the Isle of Wight in November in two vessels, named the "Ark" and the "Dove," under command of Leonard Calvert, Cecil's brother, there being two hundred emigrants, nearly all Roman Catholics, like their chief, and mostly gentlemen of fortune and respectability. While the colony was Catholic, Cecil Calvert inculcated complete toleration. In his letter of instructions he wrote: "Preserve unity and peace on shipboard amongst all passengers; and suffer no offence to be given to any of the Protestants; for this end cause all acts of the Roman Catholic religion to be done as privately as may be;" and he also told his brother, the Governor, "to treat all Protestants with as much mildness and favor as justice would permit," this to be observed "at land as well as at sea." In March, 1633, they entered the Chesapeake and sailed up to the Potomac River, landing at an island and setting up a cross, claiming the country for Christ and for England.
The "Ark" anchored, and the smaller "Dove" was sent cruising along the shore of the Potomac above Point Lookout, "to make choice of a place probable to be healthfull and fruitfull," which might be easily fortified, and "convenient for trade both with the English and savages." The little "Dove" sailed some distance up the Potomac, examining the shore, and encountered various Indians, who were astonished when they saw the vessel, diminutive, yet so much larger than their canoes, and said they would like to see the tree from which that great canoe was hollowed out, for they knew nothing of the method of construction. The colonists talked with the Indians, having an interpreter, and Leonard Calvert asked a chief: "Shall we stay here, or shall we go back?" To this a mysterious answer was made: "You may do as you think best." Calvert did not like this, and decided to land nearer the bay, so his vessel dropped down the river again, and they finally landed on a stream where they found the Indian village of Yoacamoco. The Indians were very friendly, sold part of their village for some axes and bright cloth, gave up their best wigwams to Calvert and his colonists, and in one of these the Jesuit fathers held a solemn service, dedicating the settlement to St. Mary; and thus was founded the capital of the new Palatinate of Maryland. Under Calvert's wise rule the colony prospered, kept up friendliness with the Indians, enjoyed a lucrative trade, and, after a long struggle, ultimately managed to make Claiborne abandon the settlement on Kent Island, which became part of Maryland. To the northward of them was the estuary of the Patuxent River, meaning "the stream at the little falls." St. Mary's County is the peninsula between the Patuxent and the Potomac, terminating at Point Lookout, and a quiet and restful farming country to-day. Leonardstown, on the Patuxent, named after Leonard Calvert, is the county-seat; but the ancient village of St. Mary's, the original colony and capital, afterwards superseded by Annapolis, still exists, though only a few scattered bricks remain to mark the site of the old fort and town. At St. Inigoe's is the quaint colonial home of the Jesuit fathers who accompanied Calvert, and its especial pride is a sweet-toned bell, brought out from England in 1685, which still rings the Angelus. At Kent Island scarcely a vestige remains of Claiborne's trading-post and settlement.
THE MARYLAND CAPITAL.
The settlers of Maryland were not all Roman Catholics, however, for Puritan refugees came in there. Above the Patuxent is the estuary of the Severn River, and here, in a beautiful situation, is Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, which has about eight thousand inhabitants, and was originally colonized in 1649 by Puritans driven from the James River in Virginia by the Episcopalians in control there. The settlement was at first called Providence, and Richard Preston, the eminent Quaker, was long its commander. Afterwards it was named Anne Arundel Town, after Lady Baltimore, which still is the name of its county, although the town came to be finally known as Annapolis, from Queen Anne, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, who gave it valuable presents. It is now best known as the seat of the United States Naval Academy, which has a fine establishment there, founded by George Bancroft, the historian, when he was Secretary of the Navy, in 1845. Its ancient defensive work, Fort Severn, has been roofed over, and is the Academy gymnasium. The city was made the capital of Maryland in 1794, the government being then removed from St. Mary's, and the State Capitol is a massive brick structure, standing on an eminence, with a lofty dome and cupola, from which there is a fine view of the surrounding country and over Chesapeake Bay. In the Senate Chamber General Washington surrendered his Commission to the American Colonial Congress which met there in December, 1783, and in it also assembled the first Constitutional Convention of the United States, in 1786. In front of the building is a colossal statue of Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme Court of the United States, a native of Maryland, who died in 1864. Annapolis formerly had an extensive commerce and amassed much wealth, until eclipsed by the growth of Baltimore, and now its chief trade, like so many of the towns of the Chesapeake, is in oysters.
THE MONUMENTAL CITY.
The head of Chesapeake Bay, on either side of the Susquehanna River, is composed of various broad estuaries, with small streams entering them. To the eastward the chief is Elk River, and to the westward are the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers, with others. Not far above the Severn is the wide tidal estuary of the Patapsco, so named by the Indians to describe its peculiarity, the word meaning "a stream caused by back or tidewater containing froth." A few miles up this estuary is the great city and port of the Chesapeake, Baltimore, so named in honor of Lord Baltimore, and containing, with its suburbs, over six hundred thousand people. The spreading arms of the Patapsco, around which the city is built, provide an ample harbor, their irregular shores making plenty of dock room, and the two great railways from the north and west to Washington, which go under the town through an elaborate system of tunnels, give it a lucrative foreign trade in produce brought for shipment abroad. From the harbor there are long and narrow docks, and an inner "Basin" extending into the city, and across the heads of these is Pratt Street. This highway is famous as the scene of the first bloodshed of the Civil War. The Northern troops, hastily summoned to Washington, were marching along it from one railway station to the other on April 19, 1861, when a Baltimore mob, sympathizing with the South, attacked them. In the riot and conflict that followed eleven were killed and twenty-six were wounded. A creek, called Jones's Falls, coming down a deep valley from the northward into the harbor, divides the city into two almost equal sections, and in the lower part is walled in, with a street on either side. Colonel David Jones, who was the original white inhabitant of the north side of Baltimore harbor, gave this stream his name about 1680, before anyone expected even a village to be located there. A settlement afterwards began eastward of the creek, known as Jonestown, while Baltimore was not started until 1730, being laid out westward of the creek and around the head of the "Basin," the plan covering sixty acres. This was called New Town, as the other was popularly termed Old Town, but they subsequently were united as Baltimore, having in 1752 about two hundred people.