Up in Flames

In 1814, the British targeted tobacco along the Patuxent, raiding places stocked with hogsheads ready for shipment. Filled with dried tobacco leaves, the wooden barrels burned easily, and on June 17, 1,100 hogsheads burned at Moil and Magruder warehouse north of here at the end of Magruders Ferry Road. By destroying tobacco, the British struck at the heart of the region’s economy. The raids also aimed to force Joshua Barney’s Chesapeake Flotilla out of St. Leonard Creek to defend local property. An unknown merchant wrote in the New York Herald on June 25, 1814, “It would have distressed you to see the tobacco at Magruder’s burning, as I did... Eleven hundred hogsheads, nearly all consumed.”

Aquasco, Maryland · United States