A Treasure(d) Chest of Drawers at Historic Annapolis
Happy Birthday to John Shaw! My name is Elizabeth Fox, and I’m pleased to introduce myself as the Curator at Historic Annapolis (HA). It’s been an incredibly busy yet wonderful year or so since my arrival in […]
Earthshaking News
Fortunately, we don’t feel many earthquakes in Annapolis. When a magnitude 5.8 quake shook the city shortly before 2pm on August 23, 2011, my wife and I were three hours […]
Lost And Found
Like every old city, Annapolis has suffered its share of devastating fires. In my last blog, I mentioned the 1704 blaze that destroyed Annapolis’s first State House. Today, the Museum […]
Built In The Year 1772
Visitors to Annapolis: An American Story, now open at the Museum of Historic Annapolis, get an up-close view of the original metal-clad wooden acorn which stood atop the Maryland State […]
Nothing But A Dream
Across the ages, prim and proper elders have often asked some variation of this question: “What’s the deal with today’s young people?” This is commonly followed by the self-righteous assertion: […]
An Idea Of Equality
I’ve written before about William Eddis (see “Our Little Capital” from January 28, 2021), an Englishman who arrived in Annapolis in September 1769, three months after his patron, Governor Robert […]
The Late Dreary Tempest
We Marylanders are used to the winter storm drill. As soon as forecasters warn of an approaching snowmageddon, we rush out to stock up on all the essentials: toilet paper, […]
Of Singular Advantage to this Country
By January 1772, the nonimportation associations of 1769 and 1770, which organized and enforced colonial boycotts of taxed English goods, were already a distant memory for many Americans. After all, […]
Clubbing in Annapolis
Who knew that going clubbing was all the rage in colonial Annapolis? Of course, the city’s elite gentlemen’s clubs of 250 years ago were nothing like today’s nightlife hotspots. Some […]
The Meanest House In Town
A year after actress Nancy Hallam captivated an anonymous Annapolis gentleman (most likely Rev. Jonathan Boucher—see “In Praise of Artistic Genius”) with her dramatic skills and attractive appearance, she and […]
Down A Rabbit Hole
Sometimes a 250-year-old clipping from the Maryland Gazette sends me down a research rabbit hole. The welcome mat into this week’s warren was laid out by an advertisement placed in […]
Five Pounds Reward
A little more than a year ago, I mentioned two projects that told the stories of nine freedom seekers who tried to escape from bound servitude between 1728 and 1864. […]