MDSTMARY-L Archives

Archiver > MDSTMARY > 2002-12 > 1040397283


From: "Linda Reno" <>
Subject: [MDSTMARY-L] Rest in Peace
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 10:14:43 -0500


Good morning,

It is my sad duty to inform you of the death of yet another St. Mary's
County historical treasure. Cause of death is apathy, ignorance, greed,
arrogance, and complicity.

The December 18 issue of the "Enterprise" has an article on the destruction
of Resurrection Manor. This article has been posted on the St. Mary's
County page. The hyperlink is:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mdstmary/res1.htm

As you will note, this house predates Sotterley (1717) and according to Pete
Himmelheber, was probably built by Edmund J. Plowden.

I called Paul Leibe, who wrote this article and after I'd finished telling
him what I thought about Mr. Balderson, Mr. Guyther, and other people and/or
organizations who are intent on buying, burying, and destroying the history
of St. Mary's County, I asked him if there had been much backlash from the
article. He said that there had been.

Paul has done many historical articles about the County and he's one of the
good guys. He did set me straight on a couple of issues.

About 1942, Mr. Henry Ford decided he needed a museum in Dearborn, so he
bought "Susquehanna", had it dismantled, shipped it to Michigan, and had it
reassembled. Not only did they move the house, but they also took the
tombstone that marked the graves of Christopher Rousby (d. 1684) and John
Rousby (d. 1686). I was under the impression that they had removed the
graves as well, but Paul says no, just the tombstone. Why does that give me
no comfort? Paul tells me that the tombstone has now been returned, BUT
it's at the Jefferson Patterson Museum in Calvert County.

Perhaps the tombstone was returned, because with new technology available,
it has been determined that "Susquehanna" was built much later than they had
originally thought, and so the tombstone was no longer relevant to them.
Since, in the past, they persisted in describing the house as being located
on the Eastern Shore, it really didn't matter anyway.

Another incident occurred when the U.S. Navy came here in the early 1940's.
St. Nicholas RCC is just inside the main gate and it's intact, however, I
guess they just didn't want to be bothered with tombstones. Neatness
counts! They did mark where each tombstone was located and made a plat.
Once that was done, they proceeded to bury the tombstones and cover them
with earth and grass. Now people unknowingly walk all over the graves.

The archaeologists at St. Mary's City continue in their work of trying to
reconstruct St. Mary's City as it was in the early days of the Colony and
that's fine, but while they're reconstructing, original buildings are being
bulldozed. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

Linda Reno




This thread: