Port Tobacco River
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Port Tobacco was one of the oldest communities on the East Coast of the United States. It first existed as the Native American settlement of Potopaco. It was colonized by the English 1634, and became a major port. Its remains today are identified as Port Tobacco Village, Maryland.
During the late 1600s, Tobacco became the second largest river port in Maryland and was the original county government seat of Charles County. In addition to being a hot spot for Port Tobacco Courthouse confederate conspiracy and a part of John Wilkes Booth’s escape route, Port Tobacco suffered from local conflict as well. Within a generation of the landing of the first Maryland settlers at St. Clement's Island, the frontiers of the colony were pushed north and west toward the Potomac and Port Tobacco Rivers. A small village developed on the east side of this Port Tobacco tributary, forming a nucleus for trade and government, which in 1658 became the county seat of the new County of Charles.
The early inhabitants of Port Tobacco were products of the religious turmoil in England, and their deeply felt convictions were to be a powerful determinant in the course of Maryland's history. Freed from restraints by the Toleration Act of 1649 and feeling a need for spiritual guidance, these settlers gathered their first simple Anglican church in a log building at the head of the Port Tobacco Creek. The year was 1683, nine years before the Establishment Act.
Supported by the tobacco poll tax of 40 pounds per head 1692-1776, Christ Church prospered. Faced with the loss of this colonial financial support after the American Revolution, parishioners rallied and Christ Church survived. During this era a second building was constructed in 1709; It served the Parish for nearly a century before it was destroyed by a tornado in 1808. Replaced by a brick structure, financed by lotteries, it was first occupied in 1827. Falling into disrepair after 60 years of use, it was demolished and replaced with a stone edifice in 1884.
For two centuries of its life, Christ Church had surveyed activities in the square of a busy trading town and county seat. It saw its parishioners go to fight for independence in the American Revolution and the War of 1812; it saw its patriots, John Hanson, President of the United States in Congress Assembled, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, a signer of the Constitution of the United States, and Thomas Stone, one of the four signers of the Declaration of Independence for Maryland, help form a strong confederation; it saw the occupation of its town by Union troops, the intrigue perpetuated by the Lincoln assassination, and it was there when a strong Union was established after the Civil War. It witnessed the political battles to move the County Seat. Next door, it saw the Court House burn and Port Tobacco begin to die when a railroad came to La Plata. A vote was taken to move the county seat to La Plata where the railroad industry was becoming more resourceful than the seaport of Port Tobacco, but the vote did not pass. Then in 1892, the center part of the courthouse was burned in a mysterious fire and the county seat was moved to La Plata.
Sites to visit include the reconstructed Port Tobacco Courthouse that is furnished as a 19th Century courtroom and has exhibits on tobacco and archeological finds located upstairs; Catslide House, one of the four surviving 18th Century homes in the area; the restored one-room Schoolhouse that is the original structure built in 1876 and used until 1953; and Thomas Stone National Historic Site, the plantation home of one of the four signers of the Declaration of Independence.
[edit] Port Tobacco Folklore - Legend of the Blue Dog
Halloween always reminds local residents of Charles County's "Blue Dog" legend, which has been spun in the county for more than 100 years and is taught in local schools. By most accounts and local lore, the spirit of a large blue dog protects his murdered master's treasure, buried somewhere on Rose Hill Road outside Port Tobacco. According to Rose Hill Road resident Charles Stuart, whose property contains the fabled rock that Blue Dog and his master were killed on, the first written account of the Blue Dog legend dates back to 1897, when his home's former owner, Olivia Floyd, told the Maryland Independent she had seen the ghost of the Blue Dog.
Although he hasn't seen the ghost of Blue Dog on February 8 in the 20 years he has lived on Rose Hill Road, Stuart, "doesn't doubt" the accounts of that date following the Revolutionary War, when Charles Thomas Sims, a soldier, and his dog were killed on Rose Hill Road while returning from a Port Tobacco Tavern.
Stuart said that Henry Hanos of Port Tobacco killed Sims and his dog for his gold and a deed to an estate. Hanos then buried the gold and deed under a holly tree along Rose Hill Road. When Hanos returned to recover the treasure, he was scared away by the ghost of Blue Dog and then fell ill, before suddenly dying. To this day, Blue Dog continues to watch over his slain master's treasure.
