The settlers of Maryland were not all Roman Catholics, however, for
Puritan refugees came in there. Above the Patuxent is the estuary of
the Severn River, and here, in a beautiful situation, is Annapolis,
the capital of Maryland, which has about eight thousand inhabitants,
and was originally colonized in 1649 by Puritans driven from the James
River in Virginia by the Episcopalians in control there. The
settlement was at first called Providence, and Richard Preston, the
eminent Quaker, was long its commander. Afterwards it was named Anne
Arundel Town, after Lady Baltimore, which still is the name of its
county, although the town came to be finally known as Annapolis, from
Queen Anne, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, who gave it
valuable presents. It is now best known as the seat of the United
States Naval Academy, which has a fine establishment there, founded by
George Bancroft, the historian, when he was Secretary of the Navy, in
1845. Its ancient defensive work, Fort Severn, has been roofed over,
and is the Academy gymnasium. The city was made the capital of
Maryland in 1794, the government being then removed from St. Mary's,
and the State Capitol is a massive brick structure, standing on an
eminence, with a lofty dome and cupola, from which there is a fine
view of the surrounding country and over Chesapeake Bay. In the Senate
Chamber General Washington surrendered his Commission to the American
Colonial Congress which met there in December, 1783, and in it also
assembled the first Constitutional Convention of the United States, in
1786. In front of the building is a colossal statue of Chief Justice
Taney, of the Supreme Court of the United States, a native of
Maryland, who died in 1864. Annapolis formerly had an extensive
commerce and amassed much wealth, until eclipsed by the growth of
Baltimore, and now its chief trade, like so many of the towns of the
Chesapeake, is in oysters.