As part of the activities celebrating the 350th anniversary of the founding of Charles County, the College of Southern Maryland and the Charles County Heritage Commission present a monthly Friday Lecture Series dedicated to tales of the county’s history. 

Earlier this month, Scott Hill, of the Thomas Stone National Historic Site, delivered the first Friday Lecture at CSM La Plata.  The Bay Net is pleased to present his program, "Well Disposed to Give Battle” - The Patriots of Charles County as six-part series.  

.

~*~

.

Neglecting the Few Who Did So Much:  Maryland’s Founding Fathers

If an historian asked an average American about the Revolutionary War, that person might be able to rattle off events such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the signing of the Declaration of Independence or possibly the surrender at Yorktown.  

If the same historian asks about well-known people involved in that struggle, the names of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington might come to mind.  Certainly these events and people hold honored positions in our collective memory of the American Revolution.  Yet these events and people are not all there are to the story of this period.

In most discussions of the Revolution, Maryland receives very little attention, even though Maryland was the fourth most populous colony with almost 200,000 residents at the outbreak of the war.  This neglect is understandable to a certain degree.  Maryland had no large scale engagements fought in its boundaries.  Its people had not the outspoken voices heard in Massachusetts or Virginia.  Its best known figures seemed to pale in comparison with other more colorful figures from other states.  

But if Maryland receives little attention for its role in the Revolution, then by comparison, Charles County receives no recognition for its role at all.  This is unfortunate, and I argue, an absolute oversight on the part of historians that fail to mention Charles County’s contributions to the revolutionary cause.

Charles County was not large in terms of population; its roughly 15,000 inhabitants ranked the county in the middle of Maryland’s total population.  Of this total, almost half were slaves.  Out of the remaining, half were women; another 20% were children or youth too young to serve in the war.  This left a white male population of approximately 2,000 of the correct age.  

Yet this thinly populated, mostly rural county witnessed some of the most ardent Maryland Patriots created in the whole war.  This county produced a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a signer of the Constitution, a President of the United States under the Articles of Confederation government, the highest-ranking Marylander in the Continental Army, the Physician General of the United States, a Representative in the first United States Congress in 1789, and two state governors.  What was it about this small southern Maryland County that could produce so many luminaries?

.

~*~

Thomas Stone - Photo courtesy of Thomas Stone Historical Site.

.

Rising to Importance:  Thomas Stone, part 1

Arguably the best known of the Charles County contingent was also the youngest, Thomas Stone, the youngest Maryland signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Stone descended from a long line of public servants; his great-great grandfather William had been Maryland’s first Protestant governor during the 1640’s and 1650’s.  Both of Thomas’ grandfathers served in Maryland’s General Assembly.  Wishing to follow in his family’s tradition of public service, Stone decided to study law.

He arrived in Annapolis in the early 1760’s, a particularly exciting location to begin his education.  Annapolis was referred to as, “the place where a man should study law, if he expected to attain eminence in his profession.”  Stone was fortuitous in his timing; among his contemporaries Stone would count all of the other Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Chase, William Paca, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as well as the first state governor of Maryland, Thomas Johnson.

While in Annapolis, Stone joined the Forensic Club, a group composed primarily of law students who debated some of the most challenging issues of the day.  Some of these issues tied in directly with the events of the time and the increasing animosity between Britain and her American subjects; issues such as, which was the better form of government- Democracy or Monarchy?  Do subjects have the right to dethrone a King if he is a tyrant?  The Forensic Club not only offered Stone and the other lawyers the opportunity to develop their legal minds, but also helped shape their political destinies.

The Thomas Stone plantation house, "Haberdeventure", in Port Tobacco, Charles County.