community has to a
town green. Maryland
is a border state
between the North and
South, a legacy evident
in the square’s onsite
WWI memorial, divided
into ‘white and ‘colored’
sections.
Look for a rock in
front of the nearby
circuit courthouse
(Courthouse Dr &
Washington); legend
has it that Moll Dwyer,
a local ‘witch’, froze to
death while kneeling
on said rock and cursed
the town with her dying
breath. Her faint knee
imprints are supposedly
still visible in the stone.
Nearby Fenwick St Used
Books & Music (%301-
475-2859; http://www.fenwickbooks.
com; 41655 Fenwick Street;h11am-5pm) is a good
spot for learning about
local history and current
events. On the first
Friday of each month,
music fills the town
square and businesses
throw their doors open.54 p225
The Drive » Continue south
on MD-5 for 7.5 miles. Turn right
onto Piney Point Rd (MD-249)
and follow that route for 10
miles, which includes crossing a
small bridge at the end, to get to
St George’s Island.7 St George’s Island
This beautiful little
island shifts between
woods of skeletal
loblolly pines and acres
of waving marsh grass
and cattails. The pineswere once so prevalent
the British utilized the
island as a base during
the War of 1812; the
trees were used to repair
their ships during raids
up the Potomac and
Chesapeake. It takes
maybe 20 minutes
to drive around the
island; while here,
you’ll pass by the Paul
Hall Center, one of the
largest merchant marine
training academies in
the country.The Drive » Head back up
Piney Point Rd. Turn right onto
MD-5 and follow it south for
8 miles. When you enter the
campus of St Mary’s College,
you’ll see the ‘Freedom of
Conscience’ statue (a man
emerging from a rock wall); take
a slight right onto Trinity Church
Rd and follow to the Historic St
Mary’s City parking lot.TOBACCO BARNS OF THE TIDEWATER
The Bridges of Madison County just sounds like a great novel, right? How about
‘The Tobacco Barns of Southern Maryland?’ No?
Well, those barns are in a similar vein to those flashy covered bridges: a piece of
hyper-regional American architectural heritage. Tobacco was once the cash crop
of Southern Maryland. It was the crop that made the original Maryland colony
economically viable, and the area’s stubborn loyalty to tobacco, coupled with
Southern Maryland’s geographic position under the I-95 corridor, was largely what
kept the region rural for so many centuries. But declining profits, and a 2001 state-
sponsored buyout of tobacco farms, largely ended the industry in the past decade.
Tobacco was stored in frame-built barns with gabled roofs and adjustable
ventilation slats. The frames provided space for ‘sticks’ (poles) that were hung with
tobacco leaf, which was cured and air-dried through a combination of the elements
and charcoal or (later) propane fires.
Preservation Maryland (www.preservationmaryland.org) and similar organizations
have made tobacco barn preservation a cause celebre, and as such, hundreds of
rickety tobacco barns dot the Southern Maryland triangle. They have a creaky,
spidery aesthethic, like they were drawn by children’s book illustrator Stephen
Gammell, and they’re as integral to the local landscape as the water and the woods.WASHINGTON.DC,.MARYLAND.&.DELAWARE.TRIPS18
(^) SOUTHERN MARYLAND TRIANGLE