Don’t forget that if you have nothing to do this weekend, the Oyster festival will be taking place in St. Mary’s County at the fairgrounds.
You can get your fill of fried oysters, raw oysters, scalded oysters, oyster soup, and even these grilled oysters. Yes, if you are wondering I did get quite a few of each kind of oyster and they were all fantastic.
For anyone who has ever heard of the town of Dorsey, MD there’s only a few things that can come to mind when they hear the name: Industrial Parks, a MARC Station, being close to a mall, and the Timbuk 2 restaraunt (home of some delicious and giant crab cakes)
This is the MARC station, which is not so interesting in its relation to the railroad, but is interesting becasue of the clock tower with the squared flag elements.
I had generally only passed by here on my way to the mall, but as I mentioned yesterday, I had to pick somebody up there and that finally gave me the opportunity to get close to the building.
While waiting in my car to pick up someone at a Marc station, I realized that I had a lot of time to kill. So I opened my ADC map and looked for some MDP points of interest. I came across this place. I had no idea what to really expect when the map told me there was a stadium nearby, so this was a bit of a suprise.
It turns out that this stadium is home to the BCCC and Coppin State baseball teams. It’s also used for many many different high school games, including the AA county championships. In addition it’s home to a number of adult baseball programs.
Just before I had snapped yesterday’s picture, I was at Centennial Park, where this picture was taken and where I had previously captured these geese. This time I went back at just the perfect time before sunset. I am looking forward to going during the daytime either this week or next week to catch the leaves as they turn.
One of the nice things about this time of year is that just before the clocks change, sunset coincides pretty closely with quitting time. That makes for some great photo opportunities just after work. This is one that I took pulling over to the side of 29. I really like the lone tall tree which really gives this densely populated area a real feeling of desolation.
This stone arch tunnel is just a bit up the road from yesterday’s picture. It is unique because it appears to be a tunnel through land that is only 10 feet higher than the tunnel itself. Usually this kind of obstruction would just be removed for a road.
However, there’s a catch. There are railroad tracks on top of the land on top of this tunnel. So the question is, did they build this tiny tunnel to prevent disturbing tracks that were there? Or is this a bridge built for the railroad over a road that was already there. Seeing as the tracks have been around since before the car, I’m guessing its a tunnel, but I can’t say for sure.
To continue with the mini theme of Francis Baldwin, I’m putting up (sorry if you don’t like trains) another station that he designed. This one is just up the road from yesterday’s church in Kensington.
You might notice that it shares a few of it’s lines with the Laurel station, but unlike that station which was on a different line, it is most like the small wooden Dickerson station, which we featured a few months back. In fact, as you can see below the B&O sign is very very similar.
If you are wondering, there are said to be around 80 of Baldwin’s buildings still standing throughout our state and 500 or so still standing throughout the mid-atlantic and north-east.
We’ve covered quite a few on this post already. With yesterday’s chuch and past posts from Sykesville and Mt. Claire that have also involved Baldwin buildings, we’ve hit 6. Only 74 to go.
It sems to me like fall weather has just shown up without any warning. There wasn’t a transition period. It just suddenly became colder. That means winter is coming up before we know it.
I’m not just posting this snowy church to complain about the weather, I’m also posting it becasue it’s related to a few recent posts. The connection: This church, Saint John’s in Silver Spring, was designed by Francis Baldwin, just like the laurel train station from last week. It turns out that Baldwin had two passions: trains and church. So the most famous railroad architect in the area (posssibly the country) took on a lot of work for the catholic church as well. He did so much work for them that he was given an award from the Pope.
This is Teackle Mansion, currently home of the Somerset county Historical Society. Over two centuries old, the house’s first brick was laid in 1802. The full 20 rooms of the mansion weren’t finished for 17 years, but at that time it was one of the largest buildings on the eastern shore, and was most certainly a symbol of the wealth of the Teackles.
The home was also the setting for the book, The Entailed Hat, by George Alfred Townsend. The book is largely about Patty Cannon, a woman who kidnapped free black men from the eastern shore in the early 19th centry to sell them into slavery in the south. The book is supposed to represent an accurate portrayal of life around Princess Anne at the time, but it comes with a warning that it also offers an accurate representation of the racist attitudes and perceptions of its time.
To round out last week’s posts about Federal Hill I have one more shot. This is the monument to Samuel Smith, who fought as a captain and leader of the revolutionary army, but who gained most of his fame as brigadier general of the Maryland Militia, which repeled the British during the Battle of Baltimore in 1812.
Between wars he was elected a congressman as he was also elected after the war of 1812. In the last role of his political career, he was Mayor of Baltimore. There is/was even a Samuel Smith park in Baltimore, though its location (the triangle of land at the corner of light and pratt) is now occupied by a fountain, which is why the monument today rests in Federal Hill.