dramatic touch-and-goes at Webster Field, part of the Naval Air Warfare facility at Priests Point. No welcome mat on their doorstep for cruisers, of course, but the inadvertent air show was free for the viewing. Next door to the Navy, on Molls Cove, the St. Inigoes Coast Guard station was as peaceful as its Maine cottage neighbors this weekend morning. The facility serves the Potomac and its tributaries from Point No Point and Smith Point near the river’s mouth all the way up to the U.S. Route 301 bridge.
Two homes along St. Inigoes Creek are worth particular note. Rose Croft graces the point of the same name at the northern entrance of the creek and was the seat of the Maryland colony’s first collector of revenue. (Ships coming up the Potomac were supposed to stop here to be taxed—cannons were pointed toward the river to encourage cooperation. But those ships bound for Virginia ports simply hugged the opposite shore and so kept well out of range of both cannon fire and tax collection.) Farther up St. Inigoes, on the opposite shore, sits Cross Manor, probably the oldest home in Maryland, its original parts dating to the late 17th century. It is now owned by newsman Ted Koppel and his wife.
Things were still as serene as Buddha as we left St. Inigoes Creek to work our way up to the navigable limits of the St. Marys River. Passing Chancellor Point, we remained theologically neutral and took Pagan and Church points right down the middle. (The two points, which jut out from either side of the river, offered the new settlement of St. Mary’s excellent protection from potential enemies, such as Spanish, Dutch and Virginia Protestants.) Just beyond these points, we emerged into Horseshoe Bend, where the river changes