Snapshots of St. John's

Over thousands of years, Chesapeake Indians used the St. John's site, where a freshwater spring, well drained land, and easy river access made it attractive, and pottery from the late 1500s and early 1600s indicates that one or more houses stood nearby as part of the Yaocomaco village before the English arrived. In late 1637, John Lewger chose the place for his house and plantation, named it St. John's, and in 1638 built an English-style house there while serving as Maryland's first secretary of state under Lord Baltimore and Governor Leonard Calvert; some of Maryland's earliest legislative meetings were held there as procedures and laws for the new government took shape. Around 1654, the Dutch merchant Simon Overzee moved in, renovated Lewger's house, added outbuildings, re-fenced the yards, and traded across the Atlantic until his sudden death in 1660, after which his widow remained for another year. In late 1661, Charles Calvert acquired St. John's for his home after arriving in Maryland as governor, made improvements including a nursery, and lived there with a household of over 30 people until 1667, when he moved to a plantation on the Patuxent River and began leasing St. John's to innkeepers. From 1667 to 1686, it served as a public inn or ordinary under several operators, including Mark Cordea, Charles de La Roche, and Henry Exon, who in 1678 arranged a lease with Lord Baltimore and made extensive repairs including a Dutch pantile roof, a remodeled kitchen, and rebuilt chimneys. Afterward, St. John's served briefly as a records office and then as a farmhouse, but archaeology indicates the house was abandoned around 1715; its ruins were demolished, the land was plowed for crops, wheat, corn, and tobacco were grown there for the next two centuries, farming ended around World War I, trees covered the old house site, and the buried remains were rediscovered in 1962.

Maryland · United States