Traditions Woven in Time

James Wilkinson

Driving along Route 4 in Prince Frederick, you may have noticed a historical marker dedicated to two brothers, Joseph and James Wilkinson.

I want to focus on James, because he was the fascinating scoundrel.

James Wilkinson was born in Calvert County in 1757 at Stoakley Manor, the family's small plantation near what is now Stoakley Road. His father died when James was young, and much of the estate was sold to pay his debts.

Wilkinson was educated by a private tutor and eventually went to Philadelphia to study medicine. But when the American Revolution broke out, the 18-year-old abandoned medicine and joined a Pennsylvania Rifle Battalion.

He participated in the Siege of Boston, served with Benedict Arnold during the disastrous American campaign in Canada, became an aide to General Horatio Gates, and fought at Trenton and Princeton. After the American victory at Saratoga in 1777, Wilkinson carried Gates's report of the victory to Congress.

He apparently did a pretty good job of promoting himself along the way. Congress made him a brigadier general. He was just 20 years old.

Years later, Wilkinson became the senior officer of the United States Army and governor of the Louisiana Territory. He also became friends with another fascinating character from early American politics: Aaron Burr.

Most people today remember Burr as the vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, a story made famous again by the musical Hamilton. But Burr's later activities were perhaps even stranger.

Parran's Park

Despite its name, Parran's Park was never a public park.

In colonial Maryland, "Park" could refer to a named tract of land or estate. Parran's Park was one of many named properties that made up the extensive landholdings of the Parran family in Calvert County. By 1783, tax records show Alexander Parran owning a 300-acre tract called Parran's Park, while Samuel Parran owned another 150-acre portion of the same tract.

The Parrans were among Calvert County's earliest and most influential families. Descended from Alexander Parran, who settled in Maryland in the early eighteenth century, members of the family served as sheriffs, judges, legislators, and major landowners. The Parran name survives today across Calvert County, a reminder of the family's lasting influence.

The house pictured here stood south of St. Leonard (very close to the entrance of the nuclear power plant today) and was the historic center of the Parran's Park tract. Although it appeared to be a nineteenth-century farmhouse, preservationists determined that it likely began as a small one-room house around 1750.

Cove Point Lighthouse

Standing along the Chesapeake Bay in Southern Calvert County is one of Southern Maryland's oldest lighthouses.

In 1828, the United States government purchased just over four acres at Cove Point from Dorcas Gray Bourne for $300. The property had once been part of the enormous 5,000-acre Eltonhead Manor, first surveyed in 1652.

The government chose the site because of the dangerous shoal extending from Cove Point toward the Chesapeake's shipping channel. Noted Maryland lighthouse builder John Donahoo was hired to construct a lighthouse and keeper's house from locally manufactured brick. Construction began that summer, and the light went into service in December 1828. Its first keeper, James Somerville, earned $350 a year to tend the light.

Today, at 198 years old, Cove Point is the fifth-oldest surviving lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay. It is also the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Chesapeake, its light still serving as an active aid to navigation nearly two centuries after it was first lit.

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