Don't Bypass Leonardtown

Spared from traffic woes, this historic waterfront village is driving toward a bright future.

By Theodore Fischer
Photography By Scott Suchman

Leonardtown is the kind of American small town most people think no longer exists—an optimistic, cohesive, and congenial community with a thriving downtown and big plans for the future. It’s a town where local people seem to buy everything they need from local merchants, ranging from Bell Motor Company (“second oldest Chevy dealer in the world”) to Good Earth Natural Foods, all clustered around one of Maryland’s last remaining town squares. Shopping downtown Leonardtown proceeds at a relaxed pace, each transaction a leisurely exchange of news and gossip and opinions. Except one Saturday last June when I paid a visit, and the downtown shops were all but deserted. Seems most townsfolk and a hearty contingent of visitors were all out watching the annual Soap Box Derby on “Derby Hill” (a.k.a. Fenwick Street) just east of the square. It’s that kind of town.

Like many small towns near the Bay, Leonardtown has Colonial origins and has undergone a fair share of life-altering changes. Under its original name of Newtown, it was a place to conduct official St. Mary’s County business as early as 1654, a mere twenty years after Maryland’s first colonists arrived in St. Mary’s City. In 1708, when it became the county seat, it was renamed Seymour Town after Governor John Seymour, and in 1728 it was re-renamed after Maryland’s first governor, Leonard Calvert.

Situated approximately mid-county on a protective bluff above a natural harbor on the Potomac River’s Breton Bay, Leonardtown prospered peacefully for a couple of centuries until a series of civic body blows nearly brought it to its knees. First came the construction of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in 1943. “Until that time, the center of St. Mary’s County was Leonardtown,” says J. Harry “Chipper” Norris, the mayor of Leonardtown since 1995. “With the base coming in, there was a real shift of commerce to nearby Lexington Park.”

Then in the late 1970s, the county began to gradually shift municipal offices from downtown Leonardtown to a government complex outside town, a discouraging development for downtown business. Even worse was the construction of the Route 5 bypass, built in 1990, which rerouted traffic around the business district.

“The bypass came in pretty much the same time the new big box stores were coming in near Lexington Park and kind of ended the small shops in town,” says Dan Burris, president of the Leonardtown Business Association. “At one time we probably had fifteen to twenty vacant buildings.”

But Leonardtown dodged a death sentence in 1996 when the mayor and town council persuaded the county not to implement its dastardly plan to move the courts out to the governmental center. “That would have been the final blow,” says Norris. “But once they decided to stay, it solidified the town center.”

The population hovers around 2,000—the same as for the last fifty years—and housing costs are still affordable for young families and retirees. Principal employers include state and county government, St. Mary’s Hospital, and the College of Southern Maryland.

Leonardtown Social life centers on the town square, its serenity preserved (ironically) by the Route 5 bypass that spares it from 10,000 cars a day. The square’s two war memorial monuments, dedicated exactly eighty years apart, reveal how much times change. The names of St. Mary’s County casualties on the World War I Memorial, dedicated on Veterans Day, 1921, appear in “White” and “Colored” sections. The Deceased Veterans Memorial, dedicated last Veterans Day, lists the dead under the conflict in which they gave their lives: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

The Leonardtown Mural opposite the square depicts various periods of local history but focuses on April 26, 1865, when U.S. Congressman Benjamin Gwinn Harris, who lived outside of Leonardtown, was arrested on trumped-up charges of treason. Though convicted and expelled from Congress, Harris was soon pardoned by President Andrew Johnson—and quickly re-elected to Congress.

Town square is also the focus for the many traffic-stopping happenings. “This is a great town for shutting down,” says Lori Schendel, the proprietor of Old Towne Crafters, whose own event, the Fall Follies Arts & Crafts Show (September 14) attracts more than 100 exhibitors. Other events include Halloween on the Square (October 26), a big Veterans Day Parade & Memorial that welcomes crowds of 5,000, Christmas on the Square & Annual Tree Lighting (November 29), and, in April, an Earth Day Celebration and Spring Fling Classic Car Show.

Throughout the year anyone can visit the Old Jail Museum beside the St. Mary’s County Courthouse. Built in 1858, the three-cell hoosegow was all the jail the county needed until the opening of the Pax River base boosted local population and local crime. The jail is a cozy two-story structure with no bars or other security apparatus in sight. The first floor was an apartment for, the jailer’s family. One room is now a visitors’ center, the other displays documents like original seventeenth-century deeds and a presidential appointment signed by Thomas Jefferson. Upstairs are three cells and a re-creation of the office of Dr. P.J. Bean, who practiced in Leonardtown for sixty-six years until the 1980s.

Construction of nearby Tudor Hall began in 1740, and, in its prime, the eight-bedroom Georgian-brick mansion served as nerve center of a thousand-acre plantation. Now it’s a museum and headquarters of the St. Mary’s County Historical Society. Visitors can take a guided tour of its outstanding features, including a pillared front portico, an innovative hanging staircase (no support from below), a rooftop captain’s walk with a view of Breton Bay, and a former dirt-floor kitchen that now serves as a gift shop. Between 1817 and 1950, the house was owned by the Key family, relatives of Frances Scott, who named it Tudor Hall because they believed they descended from England’s Tudor dynasty.

Leonardtown’s main shops cluster on Fenwick Street east of the square. Home Impressions fills an entire house with room-appropriate wares: mixing bowls in the kitchen, soaps in the bathroom, pillows and teddy bears in the upstairs bedrooms. S-Kape Bed & Bath Decor specializes in colorful classic furniture, rugs, and accessories. Colleen’s Dream gift and consignment shop occupies five merchandise-crammed rooms, while David’s Flowers mingles fragrant blooms with country-style antiques. A nonprofit cooperative gallery owned and operated by thirty-something local artists, North End Gallery belies the existence of any southern Maryland school of art with pieces that range from pastel seascapes and landscapes to tie-dye scarves and carved “Thank You For Not Smoking” wreaths.

On the square, Old Towne Crafters carries a variety of handmade work by members of the Crafts Guild of St. Mary’s County and runs crafts events for children on Saturday afternoon. Antiques on the Square houses four dealers: Riverside Antiques (nineteenth-century American primitive furniture), Veronica’s Victorian, Rafters (glassware), and Irish Dresser (antique European furniture). Abigail’s Corner supplies finishing touches like wind chimes and April Cornell linens, gift and glassware, and Remember When carries a full line of scrapbook supplies.

Additional home furnishings emporia are located on Route 5 north of Leonardtown. More than twenty dealers share 10,000-square-feet of space at the Maryland Antiques Center (MAC) with the on-site studios of painter Betty J. Fuqua and sculptor Sharon Balenger. The newly opened Amish Country Furniture & Creations carries pine furniture built by Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania.

Downtown Leonardtown also boasts a distinguished selection of relatively new eateries. “I moved to Leonardtown to have a social life,” says Loic Jaffres, formerly of Washington’s Maison Blanche and Jean-Louis at the Watergate, and now proprietor of the Café des Artistes. His “French restaurant with an American accent” offers daily lunch and dinner specials, a $19.95 three-course pre-fixe dinner, and live piano, folk, and jazz music.

With its main dining room in the lobby of the defunct New Theatre cinema, Nook & Monks serves sandwiches, salads, and more formal southern Maryland fare. N&M has outdoor square-side seating, a coffee and wine bar called Java on the Side, and local entertainers on stage in the newly restored theater.

Four years ago the Battaglia family left the San Francisco area and, despite no previous restaurant experience, opened the Do Dah Deli. The name comes from a Grateful Dead lyric—“Keep truckin’ like the do-dah man.” They quickly became part of the fabric of Leonardtown life, with one of the two daughters, Maria Battaglia, serving as president of the Leonardtown Business Association in 2001, and the father, Bill, also becoming a booster. “They’re putting a lot of thought into what I call ‘positive growth,’ and all of the small businesses are in the forefront,” he says. “I’m really glad my family is a part of it, but we had no idea when we moved here.”

That bright future consists principally of Tudor Hall Village, an ambitious plan to turn the 400 undeveloped acres of the old Tudor Hall plantation located alongside McIntosh and Breton Bay into a resort and residential complex. Golf pro Gary Player was on hand in June to dedicate the golf course his firm will design, stage one of a master plan that includes a 255-room resort hotel and conference center, 593 residential units, and redevelopment of the now decrepit Leonardtown wharf.

Most importantly, Tudor Hall Village will give Leonardtown control over its destiny. The state of Maryland, which considers the project instrumental to its smart growth, anti-sprawl initiatives, purchased 250 of the 400 acres and deeded them to the town. “We’re going to grow—that’s a given—and with the control of the residential and wharf property, we can control growth so that it benefits the existing town center,” says Mayor Norris. “We think the future is very bright. In fact we know the future is very bright.”

Theodore Fischer, a Washington-based freelancer, has written extensively on travel in the Mid-Atlantic.

Locals’ Guide to Leonardtown

Al Gore supped here: Following his seafood dinner at the Willows Restaurant & Tavern, owner John Nucci opined, “Gore seemed like a nice enough guy.” Route 5, south of Leonardtown, 301-475-6553.

For test pilot wannabes: The climb-in cockpits of a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom and a Grumman F-14 Tomcat at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum. Route 234 & Pegg Road, Lexington Park, 301-863-7411.

Get back to nature: Launch your canoe or kayak into McIntosh Run at Route 5 south of Route 245 and cruise down to Breton Bay.

Tea and crumpets: The English Tea Room in the Maryland Antiques Center serves an lunch and afternoon tea. 301-475-1960.

No run-of-the-mill craft shop: The ground floor of a recycled grist and saw mill, Cecil’s Old Mill displays the work of over twenty local artisans. Indian Bridge Road, Great Mills, 301-994-1510 Cecil’s Country Store—antiques and countrified gift—is right across the road. 301-994-9622.

Meet the town witch: It’s Molly Dyer, who, after irate villagers burned down her house on the coldest night of 1697, froze to death clinging to a rock now situated beside the Old Jail Museum.

Get caught in horse-and-buggy gridlock: Route 236 in western St. Mary’s County between Newmarket and Budds Creek, a winding, hilly two-lane road blacktop lined with Amish farms.