St. Mary's is one of the nation's oldest communities and Maryland's first state capital. Historic St. Mary's City is an outdoor history museum where one admission fee will admit you to the State House of 1676, a tobacco plantation and the
Maryland Dove, a replica of a ship that brought early settlers to Maryland. Excavation of artifacts continues on the grounds. Visitors can watch the archaeologists work via a television monitor set up in a tent near the dig site.
About 10 mi/16 km south of town is Point Lookout State Park, the site of a notorious Union POW camp during the Civil War and now a much more pleasant recreational park. And we highly recommend a visit to the Calvert Cliffs State Park (about 15 mi/9 km north of St. Mary's City). These beautiful, reddish-yellow cliffs along the Chesapeake Bay are loaded with Miocene fossils. If you find them on the ground, they're yours; if you dig and get caught, you'll be fined. 80 mi/130 km south of Baltimore.
