British raiding parties brought the war to Calvert County in 1814, destroying plantations and towns and carrying away spoils. With the county’s tobacco-based economy and England as its primary market at the start of the war, Britain’s blockade of Chesapeake waters was devastating for local residents. Following the Battles of St. Leonard Creek, the Maryland Gazette reported “a retaliatory system of plunder and conflagration” by the British. People fled their homes, and the original towns of Huntington and St. Leonard were burned to the ground. Many residents left war-torn Maryland to start anew elsewhere, and recovery after the War of 1812 was especially difficult for Calvert and the rest of Southern Maryland. The British often targeted stores of tobacco in their efforts to damage local economies.