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By Theodore
Fischer, Washington Sidewalk
Upper Marlboro, the
300-year-old seat of Prince George's County, Md., is only seven miles from
the Beltway but it feels as if it belongs to another time and place. The
town more or less proudly owns up to the nickname Upper Mayberry and,
except for enterprises directly related to the courthouse – bail bonds,
home tracking services – it seems better cast as a small country market
town somewhere in the South.
The town was settled around 1695 and named after the first Duke of
Marlborough, an ancestor of Winston Churchill. While the western branch of
the Patuxent River still flowed there, Upper Marlboro was a major port for
tobacco trading ships.
Most visitors today are just passing through en route to events at Show
Place Arena/Prince George's Equestrian Center, but others come for
tobacco auctions and business with the county. The newish, blocklike
County Administration Building (Governor Oden Bowie Drive and Elm Street)
hardly merits even a first look, but three worthwhile attractions are
located directly opposite:
Grave of Dr. William Beanes. Lawyer Francis Scott Key, trying to
spring his friend Beanes from a British jail during the War of 1812, was
detained during the 1814 bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore and
viewed the explosions that inspired his writing of ''The Star-Spangled
Banner.''
Darnall's Chance. Formerly known as Buck House, it is
possibly the oldest building in P.G. County (1704) and probably the
birthplace of Daniel Carroll, a Constitution signer, and John Carroll, the
first U.S. archbishop and founder of Georgetown University.
Schoolhouse Pond Conservation Area. A boardwalk within the
perimeter of the pond (pictured above), the gift of a local tobacco
magnate, offers close-up views of resident and transient birds ranging
from great blue herons and great egrets to nearly great tundra swans and
Muscovy ducks. (Fishing is permitted; a non-tidal waters license is
required.)
A mall connects the County Administration Building to Main Street and the
Prince George's County Court House (1881), where, resting against a
monument to Archbishop Carroll, alleged perps and their legal
representatives partake of the commodity that put Upper Marlboro on the
map.
P.S. Yes, there is a Lower Marlboro. It's about 12 miles south and across
the Patuxent in Calvert County.
Directions: Take Beltway Exit 11 (Pennsylvania
Avenue) east seven miles to Water Street. Go north to the center of Upper
Marlboro.
See
also: Show time at Show Place Arena
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