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By Jamie Stiehm
Sun Staff
March 21, 2005
Samantha Alexandra Poyer, a 9-year-old who lives in Annapolis,
was ready to celebrate Maryland Day yesterday as she and her family visited a
tiny historic house on Pinkney Street in the state
capital.
She knew what a diamondback terrapin, a calico cat and the medieval art of
jousting have in common. All are state symbols - identified as the official
state reptile, cat and sport.
Then again, this was no beginner - Samantha's family had come to the same
festivities last year, organized by the Historic Annapolis
Foundation, a nonprofit historic preservation group that opens its doors free
to the public on the Sunday before March 25, the official date of the English
colony's birth in 1634.
Just around the corner, Gregory A. Stiverson, the
foundation's president, was sitting on a bench in the formal garden of the
William Paca House, cheerfully grumbling that many
Marylanders are "so reluctant to celebrate" Maryland Day. The
occasion commemorates when the
"As long as I'm here, we'll be celebrating Maryland Day, when the
permanent roots of Lord Baltimore were put down," Stiverson
said as families with children and a Girl Scout troop milled about the garden
watching a jousting demonstration and other state-related activities.
"It's an opportunity to bring kids in to these pristine
surroundings," he said, referring to the Colonial townhouse where William Paca, a
Speaking about the first English arrivals, Stiverson
said that "there were 150 of them, mostly from
That was another way of saying they had no inheritance rights, so they were
considered good choices to cross the ocean and settle a new colony on behalf of
Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic.
Meanwhile, across the way in the Paca House garden,
Jeff Popp was showing off present-day symbols of
"Two months ago she was hibernating at the bottom of the
bay," he said, holding one in his hands. "And then she was on her way
to the seafood market." But the tag on her shell showed that she was part
of a new program that pays watermen to spare the lives of some female
terrapins.
The Terrapin Institute and Research Consortium, a newly established nonprofit
group, is paying $4 a turtle to watermen who either put a tag on any terrapin
they catch and release, or release one that is already tagged. They expect to
save about 1,700 female terrapins this harvesting season, said Popp, who works
for the consortium.
The point of the environmental exhibit, he said, was to familiarize adults and
children with the look and feel of terrapins, who find the brackish waters of
the Chesapeake
Bay a perfect habitat.
"They're pretty, they're soft, and they have lots of history behind
them," Popp said to a group of girls.
Just as a hint of spring sun lightened the sky, a group of singers in Colonial
dress, the Madrigales, arrived to serenade those
gathered in the garden with a song titled "In These Delightful Pleasant
Groves."
Before the day was done, Samantha took one more question put to her by Janet
Lloyd, an adult volunteer.
While her brother Nicholas, 5, carefully colored an outline of the state flag,
Samantha explained its origins.
"It's the Baltimore and Calvert coats of arms," Samantha said of the
complicated swirl of white, black, red and gold. Technically, the Calvert coat
of arms was that of the family of the mother of George Calvert, the first Lord
Baltimore.
Close enough.
Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun