Finding the Maryland 400

Hello everyone!

My name is Natalie Miller and I am the new Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution Research Fellow.  I will be working with Taylor and our supervisor Owen Lourie on the Finding the Maryland 400 project.  I just graduated in May from Randolph College with my B.A. in history, with minors in museum studies and art history.  I have performed in-depth research on several occasions, and am excited to continue to grow my skills and knowledge with this project!  I am researching the men from the Seventh Company of the First Maryland Regiment, who were from Annapolis or the larger Anne Arundel County area, and will write and upload biographies for each.  If you have any questions or comments on anyone I am researching or anything that I have I written, I would love to hear from you!

I am primarily interested in learning about historic figures as real people who, just like us, had relationships, likes and dislikes, friends and enemies, pets, homes, and even made mistakes.  I hope to discover some of these details about our Revolutionary War heroes in order to help expand our knowledge and understanding of them and their lives.  

I would like to thank the Sons of the American Revolution for continuing to provide funding for my position and this wonderful project.

Thanks for reading!

~Natalie

Hello readers,

My name is Taylor Blades and much like many of the previous interns, I am a student at Washington College. I am working towards my B.A. in Political Science and Environmental Studies. I’ve always had a strong interest in history, particularly pertaining to Maryland’s past (especially when dealing with the Chesapeake Bay). Because of this, I am strongly considering adding a History minor onto my current degree (which I would be able to do and still graduate early!). Aside from my studies, I have recently begun research for my Senior Capstone Experience, or my senior thesis, which will relate to the history of legislation in the United States pertaining to Canis lupis, commonly known as grey wolves.

As countless generations of my family grew roots throughout Maryland, specifically along the Eastern Shore, I was ecstatic to be offered a position this summer interning at the Maryland State Archives. This project is my first in-depth research project on the Revolutionary War, but I am eager to see what I am able to discover and share with all of you while adding onto all that the interns before me have been able to accomplish. It is important for me to learn as much as I can about the Old Line State and its history, especially its involvement in the independence of the United States.

I would like to thank both the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience for providing me with this opportunity.

Alongside my blog posts here, I will also be posting on the Starr Center’s Facebook page every Thursday with updates on what I specifically have been working on here at the Archives.

– Taylor Blades

If you are in the area this week, head over to the Maryland Historical Society to see Patrick K. O’Donnell discuss his book Washington’s Immortals. Those immortals were, of course, the soldiers from Maryland.

The Maryland Line was built around a core of veterans, experienced men who had survived the Battle of Brooklyn and the rest of the 1776 campaign. The success of the Marylanders in the last years of the Revolutionary War owed much to the dedicated service of the men who volunteered to fight in the war’s earliest days. They were among George Washington’s most trusted troops.

O’Donnell’s book is full of wonderful stories, many of them about men we have written about as part of this project, men like William and Samuel McMillan, who escaped from a British prison, along with William Sterrett and James Peale. (see also here for more on the Peale family).

For more information about the lecture, see this flyer.

We hope you’ve enjoyed some of the changes we’ve made over the last few weeks. One of the big changes we made was updating the biographies page.  Our goal is to make it easier to learn about Marylanders during the war by adding short descriptions next to some of our favorite biographies.  Please check them out here and let us know what you think in the comments below!

Another helpful addition we made was creating a “featured posts” page, where you can easily find some of our most popular and informative posts we’ve made.  If you click here, you’ll also see that at the top of the page we now feature as ‘Editor’s Choice’ post of the month.  For the month of March, we selected the Editor’s Choice block to a post celebrating Women’s History Month.

We hope you like these changes and just know that more are on the way!

Would you like to come work for Finding the Maryland 400?

The Maryland State Archives is looking for a staff researcher to work on the project, researching and writing biographies of the soldiers of the Maryland 400, and updating the blog. This is a paid, full time position, with funding to last approximately six months, although there is the possibility of additional funding. This is an ideal position for a recent history graduate.

To apply, visit this link: https://www.jobaps.com/MD/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=17&R2=005302&R3=0006. The application deadline is March 24.

This position is funded through the generous support of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Please forgive our appearance over the next three months while our website undergoes some changes. Your patience will be greatly appreciated and I promise it will pay off.  The upgrade will seek to streamline the website so that we can better highlight and emphasize the most valuable pieces of information here.  We will also be adding different educational tools to the website for students and teachers. Continue reading →