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| recreation of the Dove ship. Credit: trinitysaintmarys.wordpress.com |
Last month we made
our first trip to Maryland's oldest city, "St. Mary's City." In this blog you'll learn about it's history,, one of the ships that brought people over to the first colony and ongoing archaeology.
HISTORY: St. Mary's City is a former colonial town
that was Maryland's first colonial settlement and capital! Half of the area is also the campus of the
public honors college, St. Mary's College of Maryland. St. Mary's City is the
historic site of the founding of the Colony of Maryland (then called the
Province of Maryland).
BIRTHPLACE OF
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE: St. Mary's City is also considered the birthplace of
religious freedom in America. This was the first North American colonial
settlement ever established with the specific mandate of being a haven for both
Catholic and Protestant Christian faiths.
LIVING
HISTORY/RE-ENACTORS: St. Mary's City has several living history museums and the
entire complex is staffed by period dressed actors who recreate history
theatrically. Unfortunately, we visited on a Sunday, and the museum was closed.
We did get to walk around the grounds, though.
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| St. Mary's City - living museum today. |
MARYLAND'S MAYFLOWER
- The Mayflower was the ship that brought England's Pilgrims to Massachusetts
in 1629. The ship that brought the first residents of St. Mary's City was
called the Dove. It was one of the
"two original settlers ships that established the first Maryland colony."
ACTIVE ARCHAEOLOGY: St. Mary's City is an internationally
recognized archaeological research area and training center for archaeologists
today. It's actually the home to the Historical Archaeology Field School.
FUN FACT: Over the last 30 years there have been over 200
archeological digs and they continue.
NEXT: About the location and how the Colony Came to Be
