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Schoolhouse Pond

Upper Marlboro country
History, horses, hockey, tobacco auctions and alleged perps

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

Photo/image credits: Theodore Fischer, Washington Sidewalk

 
Theodore Fischer, 1801 August Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20902, Tel: 301-593-9797, Fax: 301-593-9798, email: tfischer11@hotmail.com