The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1934-06-08

Prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington. D. C.-WNU Service.
n ARYLAND, the Old Line state,
N this year is celebrating its
1Nl three-hundredth anniversary.
In March a stone cross
was unveiled at Saint Clements
(now Blakistone) island, in the Poto-
mac river, which marks the landing
place of Leonard Calvert, the first
Maryland governor. On June 10 an
other celebration will take place at st.
Marys city, site of the first Maryland
capital, near the extreme southern
tip Of the state.
Maryland is a delightful geographic
miniature of America. Her eastern
shore is as level as any prairie state
and, under modern cultivation, be-
comes as fertile. Southern Maryland,
romantic with immortal mansions that
are centuries old, Is counterpart of
tidewater Virginia and the old South.
The rolling green fields and forested
hills of Montgomery and Frederick
counties remind one Of the Blue Grass
country Of Kentucky and of the love-
lest valleys Of New York and New
England, while the long climbs of Big
Savage mountain, Negro mountain, and
Keysers ridge have made many west
ern motorist feel that they were as
high as the Rockies and the Sierra
Nevada.
Her tiny area is museum Of geol-
ogy, disclosing the most ancient rocks
of our globe and others still In the
process Of making, and running the
scale through every major geological
epoch.
From little st. Marys, where the
Colonists Of the Ark and the Dove es-
tablished the first community In the
world where Protestant and Catholic
could worship In friendship together,
In an age when Europe was red with
blood shed in the name of religion,
to the mountains Of western Maryland,
where George Washington, fighting the
Indians, gained his first military ex-
perience, q continuous panorama I'M
folds Of colonial landmarks and scenes
sacred and momentous in our national
life.
In this state, whose finest tradition
Is tolerance, intellectual giants and
big-souled men and women originated
notable principles of government and
new ideals of human society.
Capt. John Smith Was There.
1t Is impossible definitely to fix the
date when white men first saw what
Is now Maryland.
But certainly the Chesapeake bay
region was carefully explored by Capt.
John Smith, of Jamestown, In 1908.
In that year he went up one side Of
the bay and down the other, going
up the rivers and inlets as he pushed
onward. He visited what Is now the
site of Baltimore and sailed up the
Patapsco river. He also went up the
Potomac as far, at least, as Indian
Head.
After the rigors Of the Newfoundland
climate had ended his hopes Of estab-
fishing a colony there, and after vir-
ginia had refused to receive him I'M
less he took the oath of spiritual al
legiance to the king of England, Sir
George Calvert, the first Lord Balti-
more, went back to London and asked
the king for part Of the unsettled re-
gion north Of the Potomac river.
This was granted him, and also a
charter (Which he wrote himself) that
entitled him to set up a palatinate,
with the most ample rights and priv
ileges ever conferred by a sovereign
of England.
Under 1t, all that the crown retained
was feudal supremacy. Two Indian
arrows and fifth Of the gold and sill
yer produced were the sole annual trib-
ute required as gesture of feaIty to
the king. Beyond that, the proprie-
tor was given sovereign powers and
the Colonists were to retain all the
rights of Englishmen.
Impressed by the crescent form of
the southern boundary Of the terri
tory granted him by his friend Charles
/, Lord Baltimore decided to call 1t
Crescentia. The king, however, want
ed to honor his wife, Queen Henrietta
Maria, and Maryland the colony be-
came.
The first Lord Baltimore dying be-
fore he could take advantage of his
grant, the title was confirmed to his
son Cecil.
Maryland had its beginnings be-
tween the Potomac river and Chesa-
peake bay, and the events tsat trans
pired In that peninsula have had such
vital bearing on the destiny of the
United States and the course of hu-
man history that one needs to journey
hither who would understand the role
Of this fine old state in the making of
America
Seen From the Water.
To resurrect the colonial scene and
to absorb its atmosphere to best adj
vantage, one should leave his motor
car behind and wander down the Pc
tomac and up the Chesapeake aboard
one of the little trading steamers
which wend their way to all the sturdy
landings that reach out of the colonial
past for their not-too-freuuent contacts
with the Twentieth-century world.
For while modern Maryland, for the
most part. turns its back on the bay
and its tributaries and faces the splen-
did highways of the present, which
have had to keep inland to avoid