The Monthly Newsletter of the St. Mary's County Historical Society JANUARY 2025
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The View from the Loggia
Peter LaPorte, Executive Director
A New Year is Upon Us. . .
. . .and we have lots to do in 2025.
For starters, the Board will undertake development of a Strategic Plan to guide the Historical Society for the next three to five years. As has been mentioned in these pages before, the previous plan served us well. But since its execution, we've grown a bit and, well, tried to become more engaged and engaging. A preliminary analysis of the surveys we sent appear to support that view. And, in some ways even more telling, we take your support of the 2024 Annual Appeal as a vote of confidence - $41,000-worth of confidence, in fact.
We're also considering the best way to develop a rehabilitation plan for Tudor Hall. While much has been done, there are challenges facing us with the foundation, exterior walls and supporting structures, the roof, etcetera, etcetera. This isn't as easy as one might think as it involves trade-offs in time and money. It's also important to determine the best order in which to do things.
None of the choices facing us are easy but if we want the fine old manse to last another century, they need to be made . More to come. . .
Have You Noticed? IT'S COLD!
This issue of the Tudor Hall Times is scheduled to go out early Monday morning, January 6th. Though I lived in Switzerland for a year and my wife and I long ago spent a winter in Colorado, snowflakes - whether on my nose or eyelashes - have never been one of my favorite things (I much prefer the "melt into Spring" part). If the reports are accurate, you have awakened to the prospect of shoveling snow from walks and driveways.
Staying inside reading old issues of the Chronicles of St. Mary's - along with a finger or two of Tobacco Barn bourbon by my side - sounds much more reasonable.
Don't Forget to Register for Historically Speaking
If you have yet to register, I encourage you to do so now. In three weeks - Wednesday, January 22nd, at 4:30pm to 6:00pm - Georgetown University professor of history, Dr. Chandra Manning, will initiate Historically Speaking for 2025. A prize-winning historian and author, the subject of her presentation is:
A Dangerous Time in a Perilous Place -
Uneasy Alliances in Civil War Era Southern Maryland
By the end of the Civil War, half-a-million formerly enslaved people had taken refuge with the Union Army and forged a wary alliance that won the war, ended slavery, and remade citizenship for all Americans. Yet this biracial alliance between formerly enslaved people and Union authorities was especially fraught with fear and violence in Maryland.
From kidnapping, to intimidation, to property destruction, to murder, this talk will explore threats that this uneasy alliance faced in southern Maryland, the strategies that Black Marylanders used to counter the threats, and the ways in which the story is and is not remembered today.
The event will take place at Daugherty-Palmer Commons at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Directions and registration can be found at this link: Register
Forty-eight folks have signed up as of this writing and as space is limited, don't miss out!
Past issues of the Tudor Hall Times can be found on our website under Publications
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