Presidents, States, and Capitals

The Founding Colonies – Maryland.

In case you’re new to this blog, I’m on a citizenship quest and I’m determined to know each state one by one. I’ve started with the Thirteen Founding Colonies, and I’m doing those in alphabetical order. After that, I’m going to go through the 50 states as each one joined the constitution.

We drove from Delaware to Maryland last year over a narrow, soaring bridge that went on for miles and miles or so it seemed. The DH does not like heights of any sort, and believe me that’s the understatement of the year. I feared for both our lives during that 30-minute drive.

Maryland whirled by as we both tried to recover, I remember seeing signs for Annapolis, but that’s about the extent of my memory of the state. (I do so want to visit Annapolis and ogle those yummy, bare-chested (preferably) Naval Academy students...sigh, the stuff of fantasies.

So below are the Maryland facts.

Maryland

Capital: Annapolis
Size: approximately 9,775 square miles with 31 miles of coastline
Size Rank: 42
Bird: Baltimore Oriole
Admitted to Statehood: April 28, 1788, 7th Constitution
Population: 5,296,488
Presidents (birth): None
Vice Presidents (birth): Spiro T. Agnew

The smallest town in Maryland is Port Tobacco with a population of just 15 according to the 2000 census (aren’t we due for a new census?). Sadly, Port Tobacco was once the second largest city in Maryland.

According to the Legend of the Blue Dog after the revolutionary war, a solider, one Charles Thomas Sims, and his dog were killed on Rose Hill while returning home from a local tavern. A local resident and agent of the confederacy, Olivia Floyd, told The Port Tobacco Times that she’d seen the ghost of the “blue dog.”

Lore has it that Henry Hanos of Port Tobacco murdered Sims and his dog (why kill a poor doggie?) for his gold and a deed to an estate. Henry then buried Sims, the dog, and the gold (okay, I can see burying the man and the dog, but the gold? Not a thinking criminal obviously) under a Holly tree on Rose Hill. When he went back to dig up the gold, the Blue Dog scared him away, he contracted a mysterious illness, and died suddenly. To this day, the Blue Dog guards his master’s treasure.

Babe Ruth, Billie Holiday, John Wilkes Booth, Thurgood Marshall, Leon Uris, and here’s a surprise, Frank Zappa were all born in Maryland.

I’ll leave you with a selection of the criteria to enter the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Basic Requirements for Eligibility:

1. United States citizen:
2. Good moral character;
3. At least 17, and no older than 23
4. Unmarried
5. Not pregnant and no dependents.

Passing a physical fitness tests that consists of:

1. a one-mile run
2. a 'shuttle' run
3. a kneeling basketball throw
4. abdominal crunches
5. push-ups
6. pull-ups or a flexed-arm hangs for women (when pull-ups cannot be accomplished).


Cheers,

JC