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Southern Maryland counties. Those shaded in pink may or may not be considered in Southern Maryland, depending on the source.

Southern Maryland is composed of the state's southernmost counties on the "Western Shore." This region includes all of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties and southern portions of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties.

Southern Maryland was originally inhabited by Piscataway Indians. Captain John Smith explored the area, shortly before in 1634 southern Maryland's lower tip became the site of the first Roman Catholic English settlement in North America (the site is now a living history museum). Tobacco plantations flourished in southern Maryland during slavery. With a slave economy during the American Civil War, regional sympathies were very pro-Confederate (as evidenced in the official state song lyrics). From the war's beginning, however, large numbers of Union occupying troops and patrolling river gunboats prevented the state's secession, although nighttime smuggling across the Potomac River with Virginia took place. Southern Maryland was traditionally a rural and agricultural region, linked by passenger and freight steamboat routes. These steamboat routes operated on the Bay and major rivers until the 1930s before the building of highways and the interstate bridge on U.S. Highway 301. From 1949 to 1968, the region was known for its slot machine gambling (now illegal).

During recent times, the region experienced suburban development as the Washington suburbs expanded southward. This expansion took place primarily in Prince George's County, and around Waldorf (a major planned community and regional shopping hub in Charles County), Lexington Park (St. Mary's County) and Prince Frederick (Calvert County). Many southern Marylanders work at Andrews Air Force Base, the U.S. Census Bureau or at Patuxent River Naval Air Station and its related industries. Other smaller industries include a nuclear power plant^[1] and a natural gas terminal^[2] (both in Lusby), a Naval ordinance test ground (at Indian Head),^[3] an electric power plant (at Aquasco)^[4] and an oil terminal^[5] (at Piney Point). The towns of Solomons and Chesapeake Beach are favorite weekend tourist resorts.

The growing of tobacco, once a dominant crop, has declined greatly because of state government farm buyouts during the 1990s. St. Mary's County is home to the Amish and Mennonite communities. In addition, two competing groups (only formally organized in recent years) claim to be the Piscataway Native American tribe, a tribe that lived along the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland. Fishing, boating and crabbing are popular activities in this region; large marinas are found in the Solomons and North Beach areas. However, the population of fish and other marine life is threatened by pollution and environmental factors. Ancient marine fossils are abundant at Calvert Cliffs.

The region's northern boundary passes through Prince George's County and Anne Arundel County, east of Washington. Its eastern boundary is the Chesapeake Bay and its southern and western boundary is the Potomac River, Maryland's boundary with Virginia.

Towns and places in Southern Maryland include:

Anne Arundel County:

• Deale
• Shady Side

Calvert County:

• Chesapeake Beach
• Dunkirk
• Huntingtown
• Lusby, Maryland
• North Beach
• Prince Frederick (county seat)
• Solomons

Charles County:

• Bryans Road, Maryland
• Indian Head
• Hughesville, Maryland
• La Plata (county seat)
• Nanjemoy, Maryland
• Waldorf
• St. Charles

Prince George's County:

• Accokeek
• Brandywine
• Clinton
• Eagle Harbor
• Upper Marlboro (county seat)

St. Mary's County:

• California, Maryland
• Charlotte Hall, Maryland
• Hollywood, Maryland
• Leonardtown (county seat)
• Lexington Park
• Mechanicsville, Maryland
• St. Mary's City

• Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md), Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, represents southern Maryland as the representative for Maryland's Fifth Congressional District.

• Two former first ladies hail from southern Maryland: Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, and Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor, wife of Zachary Taylor.

• Longtime Maryland State Comptroller Louis Goldstein was from Calvert County.

• Co-discover of the North Pole Matthew Henson (African American) and Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate ship "Alabama" were born near Nanjemoy, Charles County. Prominent revolutionary war statesmen John Hanson, Thomas Stone, and General Smallwood were from Charles County. Dr. Samuel Mudd, convicted of conspiracy to murder in the Abraham Lincoln assassination, was also a native of Charles County.

• Best-selling Spy thriller novelist Tom Clancy lives in Calvert County in a home on Chesapeake Bay.

• Television journalists Ted Koppel, Judy Woodruff, Al Hunt, newspapermen Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, and weatherman Doug Hill live in Calvert County.

• Noted television and film screenwriter and producer Alfred Gough hails from Leonardtown in St. Mary's County.

• Singer Christina Milian once lived in Waldorf.

• Joel and Benji Madden from the band Good Charlotte grew up in Waldorf.

• Turkey Tayac, Piscataway tribal leader and herbal medicine man

• Robert Stethem, noted terror hijacking victim was from Pinefield, Waldorf

• Senator and Astronaut John Glenn trained at Patuxent River Naval Air Station many years ago.

• Saxophone player and Southern Maryland radio station owner Roy Robertson grew up in Leonardtown. Robertson achieved notoriety for playing with Chubby Checker and various other musical talents during the 70's and 80's. Robertson is also infamous in the community for being incredibly cheap and known to suffer from extreme paranoia.

Colleges in Southern Maryland include:

• The College of Southern Maryland, a community college with campuses in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's counties
• St. Mary's College of Maryland

1. ^ Power generation: Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. (2006). Constellation Energy. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
2. ^ Dominion Cove Point LNG. (2005). Calvert Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
3. ^ Indian Head division, Naval Surface Warfare Center. (n.d.). United States Department of Navy. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
4. ^ Chalk Point Generating Plant. (n.d.). Mirant Corporation. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
5. ^ Mirant Piney Point. (n.d.). Mirant Corporation. Retrieved December 22, 2006.

• The Bay Net
• Southern Maryland Online
• Southern Maryland

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