Maryland Official Visitors Guide - 2018 Maryland Official Visitors Guide
History
2017-11-28 07:01:01
History in the Making
Explore these historic sites and experience the places that set the foundations for our American identity.
Longtime home to indigenous peoples, one of the 13 original colonies, backdrop for hundreds of years of American history, and significant in the African-American fight for justice and equality, Maryland has always been at the heart of the nation’s experiences.
African-American History Sites
The African-American experience has been inextricably woven through the fabric of Maryland’s rich history. At the Annapolis City Dock, where slave ships once made port, see the Kunte Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, and honor the Roots author’s commitment to preserving African- American cultural heritage. Visit the nearby Banneker-Douglass Museum and learn of the contributions of great American thinkers and leaders like Benjamin Banneker, a man of science who helped survey the U.S. Capital, and Frederick Douglass, whose indelible marks on the pages of history advanced the cause of freedom. Special events are planned this year at historic sites on the Eastern Shore, in Baltimore and in Annapolis, to commemorate the bicentennial of Frederick Douglass’ birth.
At Baltimore’s National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, life-sized wax figures bring African-American history to life. The Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park shows a unique perspective on African-American contributions to industry, while the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center offers a window into the birth of the American sound. At the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, experience the beauty and vibrancy of Maryland’s living African-American history.
Travel the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway
Named one of the best driving tours in America, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway is a stirring tribute to the courage of Harriet Tubman and those who traveled the Underground Railroad. Gliding through historic towns and villages, farmlands, and the coastal wilderness of Caroline and Dorchester counties, this driving tour is a portal through a landscape virtually unchanged since Harriet Tubman began her daring crusade for freedom. The byway links the new Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center and more than thirty points marking touchstones in the life of “The Moses of Her People” and others. Visit the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center in Cambridge, and nearby Long Wharf Park to gaze out on the Choptank River. Now a place of serene beauty, its tranquil waters belie the site’s history as a landing point for slave ships.
See the restored Webb Cabin, a tiny one-room cottage built in the 1850s, which is similar to the slave cabin where Tubman was born near Madison. Explore Linchester Mill, a likely crossing point for those seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad. See the William Still Interpretive Center, which celebrates one of the Underground Railroad’s most famous station masters, and the Bucktown Village Store, where Tubman made her first bold act of defiance.
Take the time to explore the natural beauty around these historic sites. Called the “Everglades of the North,” Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is a wildland of incomprehensible beauty. As a girl, Harriet Tubman visited this marsh to check muskrat traps for her master. Now you can journey along miles of hiking, biking and water trails through terrain that was both a barrier and a refuge for enslaved people who attempted escape.
Living History in the Old Line State
St. Mary’s City in Southern Maryland is where the state began, with the landing of the Ark and Dove, the ships that brought the first settlers to the colony that became Maryland. See a full-sized replica of the Maryland Dove docked at St. Mary’s, which is now home to a large historic area providing insight into what life was like for those first Maryland colonists and Native Americans. Follow the flight of Lincoln’s murderer John Wilkes Booth and take the ‘Escape of an Assassin’ Trail to the Surratt House Museum in Clinton and the Dr. Mudd House Museum in Waldorf. Tour Point Lookout State Park in Scotland to see this former Union prisoner of war camp. It is considered one of the most haunted places in America.
Across the harbor, Fort McHenry held a strategic peninsula saving Baltimore, and some say the nation, during the War of 1812. After the historic bombardment, a young lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, was so moved by the battle that he penned the poem that would become The National Anthem. A trip to Baltimore isn’t complete without a visit to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine.
Maryland is rich with Civil War history. In Sharpsburg, visit the Antietam National Battlefield, site of the bloodiest day in American history. Walk amongst the ghosts whose sacrifices that day inspired Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. The country’s first federally funded highway once carried Conestoga wagons into the Western frontier. Now the 170 Maryland miles along the National Road are a destination all their own. You’ll pass through small towns, and meander along mountain passes and winding riverbanks and historic sites all along the National Road, which gets its own museum in Boonsboro in 2018.
In Frederick, see the Barbara Fritchie House, home of the brave woman who refused to lower her flag or bow her “old, gray head” before the advancing Confederate army, inspiring John Greenleaf Whittier’s famous poem. And immerse yourself in the National Museum of Civil War Medicine for a window into the harsh realities and pioneering work of Civil War doctors and nurses. Then follow the trail of the war through Monocacy National Battlefield, “The Battle That Saved Washington, D.C.” It is now credited with saving Washington, D.C. from capture.
In Baltimore, visit the Baltimore Civil War Museum at President Street Station and walk the path where the first blood of the war was shed. Then, go to the B&O Railroad Museum, which has exhibits focusing on the technology of this first modern war.
©Maryland. View All Articles.
History
https://digital.milespartnership.com/article/History/2949055/457037/article.html