More than 200 people gathered at the Thomas Stone National Historic Site in Port Tobacco this week as the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area marked its most significant milestone since launching in 2023, previewing a 10-year master plan and dedicating a sapling grown from Maryland’s last surviving Revolutionary-era liberty tree.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., delivered the keynote address at Monday’s event, titled “Southern Maryland 250: Liberty and Legacy.” Van Hollen was the lead Senate sponsor of the 2022 federal legislation that created the heritage area, working alongside then-Sen. Ben Cardin and then-Rep. Steny Hoyer. In his remarks, Van Hollen traced the region’s role in shaping American liberty, from Indigenous stewardship of the land to Maryland’s 1649 Act Concerning Religion — one of the earliest legal protections for religious practice in the American colonies — and urged that the region’s full history be told as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary next year.
“This region’s importance is not limited to the past,” Van Hollen said. “Southern Maryland continues to contribute through scientific research and innovation, environmental stewardship, military service, and economic development. Each of the heritage area sites tells these Southern Maryland stories, and together, this landscape tells a story unlike any other in the United States.”
Congress designated the four-county region — Calvert, Charles, St. Mary’s and southern Prince George’s counties — as a National Heritage Area in legislation passed in December 2022 and signed into law by President Joe Biden in January 2023, authorizing up to $10 million in federal support over a decade. National heritage areas are not federally owned parkland; instead, the National Park Service partners with state and local organizations to help preserve regionally significant landscapes and historic sites while remaining under local or private ownership.
At the event, heritage area officials previewed a 10-year master plan intended to guide preservation work across the region while expanding heritage tourism and economic development. The plan draws on input gathered over roughly three years, including a public forum last year that drew more than 200 residents and community leaders. The draft is currently under technical review by the National Park Service and is expected to be released for public comment this summer.
“We’re working to bring more visitors and investments to communities, main streets, and cultural sites across all four counties,” said Lucille Walker, executive director of the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area. “Southern Maryland’s story is central to America’s story, and we are celebrating that today.”
The gathering also included the dedication of a Maryland liberty tree — a young tulip poplar planted on the grounds where Declaration of Independence signer Thomas Stone once lived. The sapling is a genetic descendant of Maryland’s last surviving liberty tree, a type of tree under which colonists gathered to organize resistance during the American Revolution; Maryland’s original specimen stood until it fell in 1999. The new tree is one of 23 being planted across Maryland’s counties and Baltimore City in 2026 through the statewide Maryland Liberty Tree Project.
Francis Gray, tribal chairman of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, spoke at the dedication about the tree’s significance to Indigenous history in the region that predates the Revolutionary era. Tulip poplar bark and wood historically provided material for longhouses and dugout canoes for the Piscataway people, he said. “Freedom from a Tribal perspective is to live under a process of self-determination,” Gray said. “For its survival, for our survival, we must ensure that it’s respected and nurtured, symbolically and physically.”
Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, also spoke, calling national heritage areas “the National Park Service at its best” for bringing people together to reflect on the country’s history ahead of the 250th anniversary. Thomas Stone National Historic Site is one of nine national parks and historic sites within the Southern Maryland heritage area.
The celebration carries an economic dimension as well as a historical one. Maryland’s 13 state-certified heritage areas, including the Southern Maryland region, generate a combined $2.4 billion in annual economic activity and support more than 40,000 jobs statewide, according to the Maryland Heritage Areas Program; state officials say every $1 invested in the program returns about $7 to local communities. Program advocates have pushed in recent state legislative sessions to raise funding caps on heritage-area grants to keep pace with rising demand.
Residents and business owners interested in weighing in on the Southern Maryland heritage area’s draft master plan can find updates on the public comment period at destinationsouthernmaryland.com/management-plan.
