STORY BY ELLEN MOYER A NATURE, HISTORY, AND CULTURE ARTICLE SERIES
patuxent river running through it all.
OUR SCENIC & HISTORIC RIVERS
The Patuxent River is the longest and largest river wholly contained within the State of Maryland. It begins on the Piedmont Plateau near the historic town of Mt Airy, which splits itself between Carroll and Frederick counties. The river’s source is also a half-mile from the pond and spring that is also the source of the Patapsco River, which flows east toward urban Baltimore.
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Curiously, the Patuxent chooses another route, southward, winding through a 980-square mile, mostly rural watershed to the Chesapeake Bay 115 miles away. It is a fairly shallow river bounded by wetlands and forests with evidence of human life along its banks dating back 9,000 years and, at one time, teeming with fish. Bernie Fowler, a long-serving Maryland State Senator, remembered it as a river of “goodness and kindness,” giving its fish, crabs, and oysters to nourish the people who lived near it during the Great Depression. At its mouth, near some of the best farmland, families also worked the water for 300 years. In 1663, the area housed a manor occupied by Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, as a government meeting place until 1689. Up until 1940, the mouth of the Patuxent was a remote location on a Chesapeake Bay coastline with water so clear you could see crabs swimming six feet below. World War II would change that. The remoteness attracted the U.S. Navy, looking for a place to consolidate aviation and weapons test programs. In 1940, by eminent domain, the Navy acquired 6,400 acres forcing the families of Cedar Point to leave. What’s Up? Central Maryland | July/August 2022 | whatsupmag.com
