In 1860, male voters in Leonardtown cast their ballots at the courthouse, where voting was still public and men selected color-coded party ballots and dropped them into a glass-sided ballot box in full view, since the secret ballot was not adopted in the United States until the 1890s. In that election, William Charles Love of Chaptico cast the only vote in St. Mary's County for Abraham Lincoln and was ambushed while leaving town, fighting his way across the bridge home. Because John Breckenridge, the secessionist candidate, won locally, Leonardtown residents called for secession after Lincoln was elected president, and on April 23, 1861, in a public meeting there they declared allegiance to the South and resolved to raise $10,000 for weapons and ammunition. Soon some people were smuggling goods and other contraband across the Potomac River to Virginia. Union troops later occupied the courthouse and camped nearby in the Sheep Pen Woods near Breton Bay and McIntosh Run. The Beacon, a local newspaper filled with secessionist commentary, was shut down by authorities and its editor jailed, while many outspoken residents were imprisoned at Point Lookout. Leonardtown had been laid out in 1708 on Breton Bay, became the seat of the St. Mary's County court, and in 1858 was incorporated as the county's only incorporated town. Before the war, freedom seekers who escaped bondage and were captured were confined in the local jail; in August 1860, a Black man named Alonzo, who had escaped from the estate of H.G.S. Key and hidden in a cave while trying to reach Philadelphia, was arrested after a boat captain doubted his claim to be free and was returned to bondage.