The Greater Arbutus History Project

01/16/2023

St. Mary's County Historical Society, Tudor Hall, 41680 Tudor Place, Leonardtown, Maryland, November 2017. Photo by Diane F. Evartt.

01/06/2023

Event: Eastern Shore Maryland Archaeology chapter meeting.

Join us for our first Eastern Shore Archaeology chapter meeting on Sunday, January 15th at 6:30pm! We'll be meeting at the Wharves of Choptank Visitor Center in Denton, MD to hear our special guest speaker, Dr. James, Gibb, discuss shell button manufacturing on Delmarva.

We'll also preview some of the events and activities we have planned for later this spring!

Hope to see you there!

12/14/2022

Find out how the Maryland state dog came to be

12/12/2022

Eating Christmas Pie at Mount Vernon was customary in the Washington household.

In 1786, George Washington described the holiday meal as "the Attack of Christmas Pyes." He elaborated, "We had one yesterday on which all the company (and pretty numerous it was) were hardly able to make an impression."⁣

Standing pies (pies that stand up without the aid of pie tins, moulds or hoops) required a tremendous amount of coordination and preparation amongst the enslaved cooks of Mansion House, at that time led by Hercules Posey. Given the poultry boning and other preliminary steps involved, it could take at least two days to put together.

Try this modern adaptation of an 18th-century recipe: https://bit.ly/3EfsArx

(Image Credits)
Yorkshire Christmas Pie in "Dining with the Washingtons: Historic Recipes, Entertaining, and Hospitality from Mount Vernon," Nancy Carter Crump, c. 2011. George Washington's Mount Vernon.

12/12/2022

12/10/2022

Today is “Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day” and of course we wouldn’t miss the chance to bring you back in time to take a look at milestone moments in Maryland history. Come along with us as we travel from 1695 to 1952 exploring six historic events in the Old Line State. 1695 […]

12/09/2022

Imagine it is 1928 and you’re being chased by a Prohibition-era Dry Squad through the narrow alleys of Washington, D.C, transporting a car-full of illicit whiskey…

But let’s rewind to just a decade beforehand. The Volstead Act, or the National Prohibition Act, banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors with an alcoholic content of 0.5 percent or more. Initially, the Bureau of Internal Revenue was tasked with enforcement of the law; however, by 1927, a lack of support, funding, and training within the system moved Congress to shift enforcement to the Bureau of Prohibition within the Department of Justice [1].

A 1931 report by the National Commission on Law Enforcement and Observance documented the overall inefficiencies up to that year and provided observations about the enforcement with respect to various ways in which alcohol was produced and transported. Vehicular transportation was called out specifically:

“In view of the general and convenient use of motor transport for carrying illicit liquors, completely effective enforcement of prohibition requires a high degree of potential supervision, power of inspection, and systematized watching of motor vehicles using the roads”[2].

One arrest that would have fit into this description was of an Arbutus man on May 1, 1928. After a car chase through several alleys, a Washington, D.C. dry squad arrested Warder P. James with 216 quarts of whiskey [3].

Although the enforcement squads suffered from a lack of funding, training, and, in some instances, clean records, they did manage to nab James and his automobile. The Evening Star does not describe it in detail, but a similar, and perhaps more damaging, chase through Washington, D.C. occurred six years earlier [4].

References
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[1] The National Prohibition Act, H.R. 6810, 66th Cong. (1918).

[2] National Commission on Law Enforcement and Observance. 1931. Report on the Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws of the United States. Report No. 2. (Washington, D.C.: 1931), 68-69, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/44540NCJRS.pdf.

[3] "Dry Squad Takes 216 Quarts," Evening Star, May 2, 1928, 11, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

[4] After a thrilling chase through the busiest streets of Washington, ... a couple of bootleggers and their car come to grief at the hands of the Capitol police. Washington D.C, 1922. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/89709483/.

12/04/2022

11/06/2022