The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-16
POLITENESS OF MARYLAND.
IN SEARCH or THE HISTORIC
AND PICTURESQUE.
u landed the Seeker In LeOnardtewn, Nd,
and He Became the Guest OF the Com
munity-A Glimpse % Life To-day I'm
IrVer Romantic Old Catholic Maryland.

Wuntty-A Glimpse OF LILO EO~uAy IN
I7Ver Romantic Old Catholic Maryland.
Once a man and his wife from Phila-
delphia got of a train at a bare lonely little
station in Delaware and looked helplessly
around upon the --LATEST landscape this side
the great prairies Of the Middle West. At
he end Of a quiet but agreeable ten days
STAY they confessed that the one thing to
attract them to the place had been the name
Of the railway station, Mount Pleasant.
Seeing that name On the timetable they had
had visions of a towering summit clad In
green. reached by winding ways along
which the traveller ~journeyed to the tinkle
Of forest Swallowed rivulets.
Undeterred by knowledge OF this story a
yoyager recently laid a finger upon the
name Ueonardtown on the timetable Of a
certain steamboat route. and vowed a pill
grimage to this spot in search Of the historic
and the picturesque. Here plainly must be
n sixteenth century town named for Leonard
calvert. it's streets lined with fine old pillared
mansions fronted with box gardens. INC
adorned within with panelled walls from
which looked down generations of ancestors
done in oils by early American portrait
n%ainters. Leonardtown must be redolent
Of old Catholic Maryland and its indie
structible
The voyager woke early to find himself
in a sunny little harbor of the Old Dominion,
for the Journey TO Leonardtown Is made
via fifteen or twenty Virginia harbors and
half as many more in Maryland. upon a
vessel hat occupies nearly forty hours in
making "A destination reached by train in
a little more thar forty minutes. In the
small hours Of the night the vessel had left
that vast inland sea. the Potomac River.
here at least fifteen miles wide. and lost
itself in the sinuosities Of a delightful bay,
which to the eye Of one unfamiliar with the
region seemed absolutely landlocked. yet
with almost limitless possibilities OF naviga-
ton in its branching tributaries.
That lovely shut in succession OF crooked
little harbors seemed as cosey and familiar
as a Dutch canal. While the vessel eau
tjously approached a wharf on one hand
YOU looked across an arm Of the bay 10 see
the inhabitants in all manner OF land We
hicles and water craft making ready for her
arrival at their own wharf. and half a mile
beyond YOU saw still another wharf, with
tiny boats making for it from cove and cape
and inlet.
Passengers on deck recognized their own
doorvaris while yet the vessel had two or
three wharves to make before theirs should
be reached, and the captain in the pilot
house Sossiped Familiarity of this or that
farm sloping 10 the waters edge across a
mile OF sunlit tide. The air seemed balmy,
although the season was edging toward
winter a few degrees further north, and
folks ashore still wore belated straw hats.
Nine O'Clock found the vessel heading
outward upon what seemed to the voyager
likely to Ice a f~ruitless quest Of the Potomac.
But cape after cape opened out, fell behind
and melted into the general wooded mass of
the shores. and presently the majestic Hood
Of the great river, FURNISHED into one vast
mirror. spread smooth and shoreless be-
meath the gaze.
Then began the business of the day; across
and acros4 that FURNISHED mirror the vessel
slid, now touching at a wharf thrust hum
dreds OF yards outward from the Maryland
shore upon tenuous stills, now losing her
self for hours in deep delicious bays OF the
Old Dominion. where men talked Familiarity
of the Washington family and OF its N su-
premely great man, until voyage and
voyager seemed to ave reached far back
into the Colonial period.
Soaked with the late autumn sun and
tanned with the soft autumn breeze the
yoyaQer toward 3 o'clock found himself
entering Breton's Bay with Leonardtown
a, its head. The Old Dominion Of Colonial
times was we'll enough, but here at Last was
the scene of romance for which the voyage
was undertaken.
There was nothing to ~disappoint in the
approach, for Breton's Bay is m OF the
loveliest tributaries OF the Potomac,
hosomed deep in the hills Of st. Mary's
county and edged with glorious forests.
On the blun above the wharf was a solid
old Maryland mansion that promised we'll
for the town, but the drive to the hotel
betrayed nothing else of interest. There
we're no pillared porches smothered in
vines: there were no box gardens; the
court house was a new structure OF bun
brick; not a house in sight looked as il it
could shelter the portrait of anybody's
ancestor.
Plainly enough the omanc of old Catho-
lie Maryland was 10 be sought outside OF
Igeonardtown, so the undiscouraged voyager
hired a carriage for a drive. His black driver
was c~yclopaedic in his l~ocalignorance, and the
l0dQS were as Ddu Us IiICc WCNhS rum All
tough red clay could make them. Not the
boldest imagination could have invested
anything in sight with the slightest touch
Of the picturesque. The Charles county
driver was willing to oblige, but the country
really had nothing to show.
The Disconnected Voyager. returning
10 his hotel, ascertsined that he must rise
at 1 the next morning OF wait ten hours
later in order TO make his escape from
Ieonardtown. He chose the latter course,
and after supper sat dOgzedly down in the
hare hotel Office and attempted 10 bury
himself IN a book.
He was disinterred by The local barber, a
man of open and Unsuitable curiosity and
corresponding ~frankness. By a few well
directed questions he learned the age,
name. residence. occupation. errand and
immediate intentions of the stranger.
Then he began to unbosom himself.
Barbering was only one of several occu-
pations. He had been a street car con-
ductor in Washington. md he was now a
farmer. His days were passed in working
his farm, his nights in reaping the chins
of his neighbors. He had one odd in
heritance by primogeniture, the right to
nlace upon his hogs a particular earmark.
BY the time the barber had laid bare his
own and the strangers secrets there was a
little knot of listeners in the Office. The
temporary clerk, n reS.ed Baltimore police