Founded
as the sole Catholic colony in
strongly Protestant America, and
isolated as the northernmost slave
state, MARYLAND has always been
unusual. Within its small but
irregular area, it ranges from the
frantic, boardwalk beaches of Ocean
City to sleepy fishing villages of
the Chesapeake Bay, and the
bustling urban center of Baltimore
to Appalachian hill country. Once one
of the world’s most productive
fishing areas, the Chesapeake has
recently been brought back from the
brink of complete annihilation due to
pollution and over fishing. Its
abundant oyster stocks are a thing of
the past, but legendary soft-shell
blue crabs and sweet rockfish are
more plentiful than ever, and now
support a diverse, decentralized
economy, buoyed by the hundreds of
weekend watermen who cruise from one
to another of its colonial-era towns.
Maryland’s heritage isn’t quite
as obvious as Virginia’s, with
nowhere near as many historical sites,
but it boasts plenty of firsts for the
United States, including the first
Catholic Cathedral, gas-lit street and
telegraph line between Baltimore and
Washington DC. Kent Island on
Maryland’s Eastern Shore was
the third permanent English settlement
(behind Jamestown and Plymouth Rock)
in 1631. And during the War of 1812,
the British forces attempted a
last-ditch effort to wrest back the
colonies, in which they burned down
much of Washington DC and moved onto
the shipyards of Baltimore. In a
valiant battle, they were staved off
at Fort McHenry; the fort’s
resistance inspired an onlooker,
Francis Scott Key, to write the words
to the United States’ national
anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.
Maryland’s largest city is the
busy port of Baltimore, a
quirky and engaging metropolis with a
revitalized urban waterfront, thriving
cultural scene and eclectic
neighborhoods that characterize its
diverse residents. Western Maryland
stretches over a hundred miles to the
Appalachian foothills, its rolling
farmlands noteworthy chiefly for the
Civil War battlefield at Antietam.
Just twenty miles south of Baltimore,
along the Chesapeake Bay, picturesque Annapolis
has served as Maryland’s capital
since 1694. Some of the state’s most
worthwhile destinations, from the
pretty fishing and yachting town of St
Michaels to the untouched
wilderness of Assateague Island,
are across the Chesapeake Bay on the
eastern shore, connected to the rest
of the state by the US-50 bridge but
otherwise still a world apart –
except for the sprawling resort of Ocean
City.
Click here to go to
Maryland State web site
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