Town Center

Walk the paths that Maryland's colonists trod as you watch new structures being built, and learn about archaeology. Be certain to visit Cordea's Hope, a 17th-century storehouse. Test your mathematical skill by learning how to keep accounts the 17th-century way, and see how seasons affected the availability of goods. Visit Smith's Ordinary and learn how we are able to reconstruct buildings using historical and archaeological research as our guides. Examine the reconstructed foundations of the Van Sweringen Inn and Coffee House sites. Peer at portions of the inn's 17th-century brick floor, which archaeologists discovered; this is the same floor where members of the Governor's Council and other prominent visitors enjoyed some of the best cider in the colony in the late 1600s.

As you walk through Town Center, notice the building frames. These structures, called ghost frames, designate where archaeologists have discovered 17th-century buildings. In some cases, the identity and history of these buildings are known, but others still remain a mystery. Visit with archaeologists during the Summer Field School to find out what the latest discoveries are. Using the ghost frames and archaeological clues, imagine St. Mary's City in the 1680s.

Town Center at Historic St. Mary's City includes Smith's Ordinary, a re-creation of an ordinary or inn typical of Maryland in the last quarter of the 17th century, Cordea's Hope, a storehouse, and the State House, a re-creation of the original built in 1676. This reconstruction was built in 1934 in honor of the colony's 300th anniversary.

St. Mary's City was Maryland's first capital and was intended to serve the colony as the center of commerce and the seat of government. The plan for the town, made in the 1660s, apparently featured a physical separation of church and state to symbolize the intellectual concept upon which the colony had been founded. The structures housing the government (the State House) and the church (the Catholic chapel) were located at opposite ends of the town and the church was built only with private funds. Few families ever actually lived in St. Mary's City year-round since most people lived on tobacco plantations. Most of the people who visited the town were men who had business with the courts or the government, so consequently, most of the buildings served government needs or were the inns and ordinaries that provided food and lodging. The small number of businesses located in St. Mary's City included a printer and lawyers; there were probably no year-round stores.