In addition to general tourism, the organization hosts special tours for school children, handling more than 20,000 students on field trips per year.

It was specifically tasked by the state of Maryland to be modeled after far more expensive private elite liberal arts colleges with the intention of offering such an education in the public sector.

Calvert had been born in Yorkshire to a Catholic family, but when he was twelve, the local authorities compelled his parents to send George and his brother Christopher to a Protestant tutor.

His first attempt at establishing a colony was in 1621 in the Province of Avalon on land he purchased in Newfoundland, but after a few years, Calvert decided a warmer climate would be a better location.

[19] After his wife's death in 1622, and a shift in his political fortunes, in 1625 Calvert resigned his position as a secretary of state and returned to the religion of his childhood,[20] at a time of continued religious persecution of the Roman Catholics in England.

[21] George Calvert died shortly before the Maryland charter received the royal seal; however, the King continued the grant to his eldest son and heir, Cecil.

[22] Leonard spent the rest of his life there, leading the settlers through many trials and tribulations, as well as to great successes in the farming and selling of tobacco back to Britain.

Led by Leonard Calvert, in November 1633, two ships, The Ark and The Dove,[23] set sail from the Isle of Wight, loaded with settlers, Jesuit missionaries and indentured servants.

[27] He wanted to develop them as allies and trading partners (especially because of their advanced technology, such as farming implements, metal-working, gunpowder and weapons, types of food and liquor, etc.).

For example, he wanted them to live in regimented fashion within the newly constructed fort in St. Mary's City but the greatest need perceived by the assembly was to allow for more spread-out farming.

Mathias de Sousa was a settler in the colony who was described in historical records by one witness as being "mulatto" (mixed African and European heritage, although sometimes this meant anyone who was dark skinned).

[citation needed] Instructions from George Calvert, the First Lord Baltimore, and the holder of the grant to the new Maryland Colony specified in 1633 that the new governor and all settlers were to practice religious tolerance.

Older practices of allowing chattel slaves to gain freedom by converting to Catholicism or by eventually grandfathering indentured rights to them after many years of servitude were abolished.

The law, in writing, had always been on Brent's side, but the common practices and beliefs of the day did not always guarantee enforcement, especially in the male-dominated frontier environment of the colonies, far away from the courts of England.

The violence stemming from the English civil war eventually spread to the colonies[34] and a Protestant raiding party attacked St. Mary's City, driving off many settlers and burning several structures.

And so Brent successfully petitioned the Maryland Assembly to grant her power of attorney over the holdings of Cecil Calvert, the Lord Baltimore, who was Leonard's brother living in England.

[34] In defense of Brent, the Maryland Assembly issued the following proclamation about her: ...the Colony was safer in her hands than any man's in the Province, and she rather deserves favor and thanks for her so much concerning [herself] for the public safety.

All of this began, in stages, to have a destabilizing effect on the Maryland Colony, which then further aggravated latent religious tensions between the majority Protestant planters and the Catholic aristocratic leadership.

[41] The new Protestant Maryland governor Sir Francis Nicholson relocated the capital from St. Mary's City to the more central Annapolis[5] (then called "Anne Arundel Town")[1] in 1695.

[5][9][44] The small remaining farms in St. Mary's City were consolidated into a large antebellum-style slave plantation by the Brome-Howard family, which operated through a majority of the 19th century.

Records show that one quarter of the 66 people living under slavery at Doctor Brome's plantation in St. Mary's City escaped during the Civil War[47] and at least two of them then joined the Union Army.

[47] Two other African American men from the area, William H. Barnes and James H. Harris both from Great Mills (which is just to the north of St. Mary's City), who had been free tenant farmers before the war, also served in the same regiment.

[51] The United States Colored Troops Memorial Statue, in Lexington Park, Maryland, seven miles north of St. Mary's City, honors and memorializes African American soldiers from St. Mary's County, including the men of the 38th United States Colored Troops Regiment, who served as soldiers or sailors in the Union cause during the American Civil War.

The Civil War ended slavery on the plantation and the area remained mostly under a large farm,[5] worked by tenant farmers and owned by descendants of the original owners until the 20th century.

[8] The town center site appeared to be farmland[5] with the exception of a few private residences, and also after 1840, a slowly expanding female seminary school that began with just a small part of the total area.

And the long grass o'ertops the mould'ring wall[52]The Deserted Village[52]The book Rob of the Bowl tells a somewhat fictionalized story of the original St. Mary's City.

[6] Its founders described it as a "living monument" to the beginnings of religious tolerance and established it to meet the educational needs of young women in the county and the state.

[54] The school was intentionally made nondenominational, to honor, promote and memorialize religious tolerance, and also to help heal Protestant-Catholic tensions that still haunted St. Mary's County at the time.

[61] Commissioned to celebrate the founding of St. Mary's City, Hunter's outdoor drama prominently featured the characters of Leonard Calvert, William Claiborne, Ann Arundel, Richard Ingel, Mathias de Sousa and others, and launched the career of two-time Academy Award winner, Denzel Washington, who made his stage debut as DeSousa.

[8] It had been originally expected that the layout would be chaotic, but instead it was revealed that the town was actually carefully planned in a Baroque style,[9] similar to Williamsburg, Virginia and Annapolis Maryland.