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Place Name
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Charles County
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Place Status (Type)
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county
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Capital is
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La Plata
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Population
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101,154 (1990)
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Location
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Charles County, Maryland (MD), United States, North America
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Latitude
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38°29'N
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Longitude
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77°01'W
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Charles
, county (
643 sq mi/1,665 sq km; 1990 pop.
101,154), S Md.;  La Plata; 38°29'N 77°01'W. On SW shore
(Potomac R.; bridged here to Va.) of the Md. peninsula; co. is partly
bounded SE by Wicomico R., E by Patuxent R., N by Mattawoman Creek.
Tidewater agr. area (chiefly tobacco), with some lumbering, commercial
fishing and oystering; tobacco markets at La Plata and Hughesville.
Swamps along streams (notably Wicomico R.) contain stands of timber and
provide hunting. A proclamation by Gov. Josias Fendall created this co.
out of St. Mary's County in 1658 named for Charles Calvert, Lord
Baltimore. Tobacco auctions, open to the public, are conducted every
spring in La Plata, Hughesville, and Waldurf as they have been since
1895 when La Plata replaced Port Tobacco as the co. seat. St.
Catharine, a mid-19th-cent. house owned by the Mudd family, was where
Dr. Samuel Mudd set the leg of John Wilkes Booth, broken as he fled the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The cornerstone of St. Ignatius
Church was set in 1798 and the entire church rebuilt after a fire in
1866, according to the original specifications. It is the oldest active
Jesuit parish in the U.S. Charles Co. Community Col. here.
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