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Chronicles 300 years in the development of Charles County. The area known today as Charles County lies along a wide curve of the Potomac River, just south of Washington, D.C., and across the river from George Washington's boyhood home in Virginia. It has been steeped in history since Captain John Smith explored the area in 1608. This commemorative book marked Charles County's 300th birthday by chronicling its beginning in the 17th century, its growth and development in the 18th century, and its maturity in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is illustrated with ancient maps and portraits of historical figures, from Charles Calvert, third Lord Baltimore, for whom the county was named, to the Lincoln conspirators, who fled across the county in their desperate escape bid. Researchers will find an abundance of valuable material: a thorough list of notes and references is followed by appendices which include a description of the original boundaries of "old" Charles County (which included parts of St. Mary's, Calvert, present-day Charles and Prince George's counties); a list of Charles Countians of prominence; bibliography; 1790 U.S. census for Charles County, and a comprehensive index of names, places, and subjects. This work is cited in the Harvard Guide to American History.
Faithful subjects of the English crown, Jesuits, and entrepreneurs first settled in Charles County in the early 1630s. The area quickly sprouted into Colonial-styled plantation life of distinct Southern charm. The currency of the day was tobacco, even for payment of taxes and doctor bills. Through the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the mainly agricultural economy of the county was devastated. But as time passed, plantations became farmsteads, Native American trails became roadways, and the railroad created new town centers, such as Waldorf and La Plata. In the earlier years, the countys self-sufficiency was strongly displayed when the public school system and fire departments were started through private donations. For most of its life, Charles Countys only employer not associated with agriculture was the Indian Head Naval Proving Ground, now known as the Indian Head Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center. It is still ranked as the countys number one employer. Tobacco still reigned as the cash crop of choice until 2000.
This volume contains a compilation of records which show familial relationships, ages (deponents and servants), dates of birth, marriage and death, and names of tracts. This valuable data was drawn from wills, inventories and accounts, church registers (T
Economic and social life in the upper Chesapeake during the colonial period diverged from that in southern Maryland and Tidewater Virginia despite similar economic bases. Charles Steffen's book offers a fresh interpretation of the economic elite of Baltimore County and challenges the widely accepted view that the life of this privileged class was characterized by permanence, stability, and continuity. The subjects of this study are not the tiny knot of Tidewater aristocrats who have dominated scholarly inquiry, but the numerically predominant but largely unknown "county gentry" who constituted the bedrock of the upper class throughout Maryland and Virginia. Because most Tidewater aristocrats shunned the northern frontier of Chesapeake society, Baltimore proves an ideal location for exploring the uncertain world of the county gentry. Most of the men who climbed the ladder of economic and political success in Baltimore, hoping to establish dynasties, watched with dismay as their children slipped back down that ladder in the later colonial years. The absence of entrenched oligarchies gave to the upper levels of county society a striking degree of fluidity and impermanence. In chapters dealing with the plantation workforce, the landed estate, the merchant community, and the established church, Steffen demonstrates that this openness pervaded all dimensions of the life of the gentry. Steffen's analysis of the complicated social and political realignments produced by the Revolution provides a fitting conclusion to his study, for in the independence struggle the openness of the gentry was most clearly revealed. In its vivid portrayal of the men and women who comprised the bulk of the gentry, From Gentlemen to Townsmen sheds new light on the complex economic and social life of the Chesapeake.