Lunch & Learn: Maryland's Longest Intrastate River: The Patuxent

Registration not required, but encouraged. Please register for the event here.

It starts as a whisper near the four corners of Maryland, where Montgomery, Frederick, Howard and Carroll counties converge. It’s little more than a meandering brook winding its way through farmland, but when it completes its 110-mile journey to Southern Maryland, the Patuxent River runs 120 feet deep, reaches two miles wide and is the source of billions of dollars in industry, research and recreation. - The Calvert Recorder, June 7, 2020

This illustrated talk highlights some of the lesser-known facts about Maryland's longest intrastate river, The Patuxent. The Patuxent River is an underappreciated Maryland natural and cultural resource. This presentation will tell you why.

Ralph Eshelman has over forty years of cultural resource management experience. He was director of the Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons, Maryland, from 1974 to 1990. Under his direction were completed the restoration and interpretation of the National Historic Landmarks J.C. Lore Oysterhouse and oyster buyboat Wm. B. Tennison as well as National Register listed Drum Point Lighthouse. Upon retirement from Calvert Marine Museum Ralph became owner and principal of the cultural resource management consulting firm, Eshelman & Associates, Lusby, Maryland. His work includes researching and writing the Historic Context Study for the oystering industry of the United States for the National Maritime Initiative of the National Park Service. Eshelman prepared the Cultural Resource Management Plan for the United States Coast Guard and wrote the Recommended Criteria for the Selection of the Principal Museum for the Monitor Collection of Artifacts and Papers. He has written numerous successful National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark nominations including the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina, the Union Oyster House in Boston, and the Grand Central Terminal Oyster Bar in New York City. Eshelman served as historian for the team which wrote the “Historic Lighthouse Preservation Handbook” for the United States Coast Guard and National Park Service. He was co-director of the Patuxent River Cultural Resource Survey which discovered and partially excavated an American War of 1812 military vessel from the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla. Eshelman also conducted a holistic inventory of War of 1812 and Revolutionary War sites in Maryland for the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. He also served as the historian for the “Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail” Study Team of the National Park Service. Eshelman is currently working on a comprehensive encyclopedic pictorial history of the Patuxent River to be published by the Calvert Marine Museum.

ASL interpretation will be available for attendees.

Presented in partnership with The Maryland State Archives and The Maryland Four Centuries Project.