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When Leonard Calvert and
his original colonists arrived in what is now Maryland in March
of 1634, they immediately set about establishing civil
boundaries as they had known them in England. The seat of the
first county was set up at the town site of the Ybocomico
Indians. The county seat and the county itself were named St.
Mary’s, in honor of Mary the Mother of Jesus, under whose
protection the Maryland venture was placed. From 1634 to 1708,
court proceedings were conducted in the homes of various
gentlemen of note in the town.
In 1708, Phillip Lynes, the mayor of St. Mary’s City, gave
the colony fifty acres of a piece of land known as “Shepherd’s
Old Fields” at the head of Breton Bay, some 14 miles northwest
of the city. The land was to be divided into 100 lots and laid
out as the county seat of St. Mary’s County. Seven commissioners
were charged by the Governor and Assembly of Maryland to oversee
this endeavor, which included building a county courthouse on
one of the lots at an expense not to exceed 12,000 pounds of
tobacco. At the suggestion of Mr. Lynes, the town was named
Seymour Town in honor of the royal Governor John Seymour.
In 1728, a new set of commissioners appointed by the
government in Annapolis renamed the town Leonardtown for the
then Governor of Maryland, Benedict Leonard Calvert. Leonardtown
continued to serve as the county seat of St Mary’s County and
the place where the colony conducted its official business for
the citizens of the county. A new brick courthouse was built in
1736, the original 1708 log building having fallen almost into
ruins.
Leonardtown has been invaded twice. The British invaded
during the war of 1812 and made off with food supplies. Then,
during the Civil War, a Union naval contingent came ashore and
searched the houses for weapons and supplies that might be
intended for shipment to Confederate forces.
Leonardtown functioned as a port from colonial times up
through the end of the steamboat era, when better roads and
trucking usurped river navigation as the preferred mode of
transporting goods. But the original purpose for which
Leonardtown was established—to serve as a center of commerce,
residence, and government—has continued with distinction
throughout the town’s three centuries of existence.
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