"…once the Metropolis"

"…once the Metropolis". Taking Shape. , St. Mary's City was Maryland's capital from 1634 until 1695. Lord Baltimore wanted a typical European-style town with closely placed dwellings. During its early years, however, St. Mary's was a mere cluster of houses and taverns. The first legislature met in private homes including Governor Leonard Calvert's nearby house and the St. John's plantation owned by John Lewger, secretary of the colony., History has left no map of the first capital of Maryland. Archaeology suggests that a formal plan guided the design of St. Mary's City in the late 1600s. Jerome White, the colony's surveyor, may have created the plan., In this design, the main roads of St. Mary's City formed two triangles, with principal streets meeting in the town center. Two massive brick structures, the State House built in 1676 and the Catholic chapel built in 1667, rose at the far ends of town, and were equally distant from its center. Today you enter the town center on the same paths used by Maryland's 17th-century residents., [Captions:] , The only surviving record of the City's bylaws proclaimed in 1685, "Notice being taken by this Court of the great debaucheries and disorders that are committed in this City on Sundays by severall psons, by drinking, gameing, sweareing..." The result was a ban on gaming and selling strong liquors on Sundays., White clay pipes made in Europe were used in the 17th century in St. Mary's City. Such clay pipes are one of the most common artifacts found on colonial sites in Maryland., The St. Mary's City plan used symmetrical triangles to focus attention on significant buildings. Two arms of the plan reached to the main entry points of the city, the river landing and the mill dam that provided passage over Mill Creek. The principal streets of the city followed this triangular plan., Staffordshire-style slipware mug, of the type used in taverns in St. Mary's City in the late 17th century. , [Aside:] , "That they cause all the Planters to build their houses in as decent and uniform of manner as their abilities and the place will afford and neere adjoining one to an other, and for that purpose to cause streetes to be marked it where they intend to place the towne and to oblige every man to buyld one by an other..." , Lord Baltimore's instructions to the Colonists, 1633, [Timeline:] , 1634 , 140 Colonists Arrive in Maryland, 1640s , English Civil War, 1645 , Ingle's Revolt Nearly Destroys Colony, 1650 , Colony's Population Only About 100, 1661 , Calvert House Becomes First Official State House, 1667 , Catholic Brick Chapel Constructed at St. Mary's City, 1668 , St. Mary's City Incorporated, 1676 , Brick State House Built, 1689 , Protestant Rebellion in Maryland, 1695 , Capitol Moves to Annapolis