The Adair County news., 1922-09-26
tricks CITIES
into OBLIVION
Prosperity and Activity of Early
Days Hastened. Decay of
Once Noted Ports.
NOW ARE DESERTED VILLAGES
Erosion Of Land, Due TO Cultivation,
Fills Once Navleable Streams and
Despoils Soil Of Its
Fertility.

Washington.-Men have been build
ing cities and deserting them from
time immemorial. The usual causes
are military and economic. Carthage,
one Of the greatest cities of early
times, was utterly destroyed after the
PUnic wars waged by the Romans. Vir-
ginia City, New, was deserted because
the mining industry which made it
a substantial municipality lapsed upon
the exhaustion of the lode. But here
IN the East is group Of cities which
nave fallen from their previous impor-
lance by the operation of the forces
of nature.
The great mass of the people of the
United States, being distributed so
widely over the expanse of the new
territory of the West, lacks the envir-
onment to create a realization Of the
antiquity of the Eastern section. 1t is
difficult for the man in Chicago to
realize that the eastern Americans
have lived on this soil for as long a
period under the British flag as under
6he American-that the period extend
Jug from the first settlement of the
eastern seaboard up to the American
Revolution was as long as that from
the Revolution to the present day.
Prosperity Saps Life.
More than three centuries Of human
occupation bring about curious
changes in the habitations Of men.
When the country was first settled the
soil was virgin and for the most part
. covered with dense forests. The pio-
ueers built their primitive houses on
the banks of streams because the
streams were their easiest roadways.
They felled the trees and planted their
corn and tobacco and, in the course of
years, ports sprang up by the water
/: side and became thriving cities. The
farms reached farther and farther
back into the wilderness, large areas
! being cleared of timber.
Southern Maryland furnishes an ex-
,EelIent example of such development.
Its soil is lOamy and was extremely
fertile. As, year after year, the gently
aresIing hillsides were plowed, the soil
was Ioosened and the rain Of each
year washed it down into the streams.
Ekcee centuries Of this erosion gradu-
saz2y have filed up the streams. The
riverside and bayside cities which once
&hrove on the shipping of the products
Of the farm did not keep up with the
erosion Of the land. The result was
that the streams filled year by year
until the channels were clogged and
what once were noble waterways now
are narrow creeks.
Soil and Streams Ruined.
This erosion, which was despoiling
the rivers, the highways Of commerce,
also was washing off the rich, fertile
top soil. Therefore the land which
produced the crops, the object of COM
Ymerce, disappeared in company with
the streams. 1t was inevitable that
their means of commerce and the COM
zazodities of commerce taken away by
this operation Of natural forces set in
motion by the plow.
When the Romans took Carthage
they tore down the buildings, sowed
salt upon the site and plowed it under.
The lost cities of southern Maryland
no less have been plowed under. There
are three excellent examples Of these
places, Bladensburg, Port Tobacco and
Piscataway.
Bladensburg was a port to the
TFharves of which came great mer-
chant ships from England that sailed
~, tho pofODooa op5 foIIc uyod itS 90 CT
ern branch to the port which was
city long before Washington was even
planned. Today no craft larger than
"a small motorbOat can get up as far as
BIadensburg and, after a dry spell,
even such a small boat is likely to
ground. ~.
ThriVing Port Near Extinction.
Bladensburg was a thriving port Of
entry, a great tobacco shipping point.
1t boasted hotels and warehouses and
numerous beautiful colonial mansions,
several of which still stand. Today it
is a village of small population and
probably would have disappeared al
together were it not for the fact that
1t is near Washington.
probably the most interesting or the
lost cities is Port Tobacco. Old maps
OF Maryland show this place marked
with the large star or circle as indi-
eating an important center. Mary
: LADDERS lean strongly on tradition and
. even today the maps show Port To
bacco as a second-class city. Not more
6hansthree families live there.
Pert Tobacco, obviously, was one OF
fhe busiest Of the tobacco exporting
points 1t stood on an estuary OF the
Potomac. From it radiated the roads
peculiar to southern Maryland, roads
over which the planters rolled their
huge hogsheads of tobacco, Its court
& house was the pride of that section.
Its hotel was the social center OF the
country. In its public square was q
marble fountain and its warehouses
,-s...,,,.ssa xryfdo snaces II was an I'm