Welcome to St. John's

St. John's was the site of a house built in 1638 for John Lewger, an early Maryland leader who named the plantation for his patron saint. For nearly a century, people lived there as the place served many purposes, including a private home, tobacco plantation, government meeting place, courtroom, governor's residence, public inn or ordinary, and records office. Significant events there included the meeting of Maryland's first elected assembly, the first vote in a legislature by a person of African descent, and the first time in America that a woman requested "vote and voyce." Surviving documents and archaeological work have revealed stories of the site and of the long-forgotten people who lived, worked, and died there, and research there became a model of interdisciplinary study of early American life. A 1670 map of the Chesapeake region drawn by Augustine Herrman marked its location with its name and a symbol for the house.

Maryland · United States