Portrait of a New Leonardtown: Family Days and Family Nights
 

By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN --- With a slew of activities stretching from the foot of the hill at Leonardtown Wharf, up to and through the closed off town square, families packed the old town of Leonardtown on Saturday.

A display of old buy boats which formerly worked the Chesapeake and its tributaries, was on display at the waterfront.

A magician kept several hundred children enthralled with his tricks at a stage set up across from the courthouse on the lawn of former Delegate J. Ernest Bell.

Old and vintage cars and trucks were on display along with great popcorn made on the street in front of the old First National Bank building.

While Sheriff Tim Cameron patrolled the hot dog stands and funnel cake booths with his wife Angie and their two sons, the popular Sheriff stopped to talk and greet visitors, making him the only visible or needed member of the local law enforcement agencies.

St. Mary’s Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) visited the vendors on the square while his longtime fellow band member George Henderson played with a group belting out classic tunes on the town square.

Politicians such as Tommy McKay, Collins Bailey and Dan Morris worked the crowd hard for votes. Commissioner Tommy Mattingly (D. Leonardtown) who is leaving office this year, was walking around the square but still doesn’t have any successes in obtaining a traffic light at the entrance to St. Mary’s Hospital, despite his weekly trips to Annapolis.

In the middle of the intersection of the center of town, a large volley ball court was erected on sand which had been trucked into the street.

The Cerro Grande had folks mobbing the Mexican food restaurant shuttles carried folks up and down the steep hill to the waterfront.

The nearby Leonardtown Grill, next to Salsa, was a great stop for dinner for those who avoided the huge food court laid out along the town square. The steak sandwich is tender and huge while the new restaurant features terrific ribs and crab ball specials, puts out great cornbread and fills a need in the center of the county for a great chops, steaks and crab cake roadhouse.

As darkness fell on Leonardtown, the light sticks came out as the crowd thinned and vendors began to pack up. But the band played on and instead of Leonardtown being home to fights, shootings and screeching tires of road-rage rednecks, families enjoyed the tunes of the band as they sat in lawn chairs or on blankets spread on the lawn.

The turn-around of the 300-year plus old town which started out as Seymourtown and later was renamed for colonial Gov. Leonard Calvert, and hosts Tudor Hall, home to the Key family of which Francis Scott Key was a member, is now rooted to our youngest generation.

The kids getting their faces painted, playing volleyball in the street or woofing down hot dogs, BBQ and funnel cakes won’t be able to attend the now-discontinued Leonardtown VFD Carnival, but they did have a heck of a time at the Town’s Beach Party.

The ghost of Whitey Woodburn, who was murdered in the alley of the old Town Inn and his body dumped along Rt. 5, would find this town to be very different from the one he knew.

The same is true for the ghost of Michael Burrell, who was shot in the head after an evening of sleigh-riding next to Leonardtown Elementary School on Super Bowl Sunday about 30 years ago. Henrietta Ragan’s ghost is surely wondering how this town is so different from the one in which she was murdered and the crime scene sanitized as the rumored killer was one of two local good old boys with whom she was having an affair.

These three ghosts still prowl the streets of the Walled City but on Saturday, perhaps even these haunted spirits found fun and solace amid a new and modern town which sports monthly family oriented activities instead of the old days of hard drinking and hard drugs.