The nonprofit that retired the Potomac Jazz & Seafood Festival after its 25th year is replacing it with something new: a three-day festival at St. Clement’s Island, where Maryland’s first English colonists came ashore in 1634.
The Friends of St. Clement’s Island & Piney Point Lighthouse Museums announced plans Tuesday for the First Landing Festival, set for July 9-11, 2027, on the grounds of the new St. Clement’s Island Museum in Coltons Point. The group supports the St. Mary’s County Museum Division, and the festival will be its major annual fundraiser and regional tourism event.
The group describes the festival as an “ambitious” celebration that honors Maryland’s beginnings while creating new experiences for today’s Southern Maryland community and visitors.
Three days, three themes
Each day of the festival will have its own focus:
- Children’s Day, aimed at families and young visitors
- A celebration of local wine and the arts
- Descendants’ Day, meant to connect families and generations to the story of Maryland’s first landing
Organizers are keeping the festival’s centerpiece under wraps for now. They say it will be a major event “unlike anything previously presented in Southern Maryland,” one that “will bring history and modern technology together in a spectacular new way.” The details will be revealed at a media preview Oct. 14 at Piney Point Lighthouse Museum & Historic Park, where organizers plan to discuss the festival’s vision, historical significance, programming and partnerships.
Karen Stone, manager of the county’s Museum Division, and Janet Cooper of the Friends group will lead the preview.
Farewell to a 25-year tradition
The First Landing Festival replaces one of St. Mary’s County’s longest-running summer events. The Potomac Jazz & Seafood Festival marked its 25th year in 2025. Over the years it grew into a multi-day event, and in its final summer it ran four days across three venues.
That last festival, July 10-13, 2025, opened with a jazz at sunset evening at Piney Point Lighthouse. It continued with a plein air art celebration and a free concert by the U.S. Navy Band Commodores at St. Clement’s Island Museum, and a main-event concert on the museum grounds. It closed with a jazz brunch at the Riverview Restaurant at Wicomico Shores Golf Course and cruises on the Potomac. The festival drew nearly 1,000 jazz fans from across the Mid-Atlantic and once earned the Maryland Office of Tourism’s Maximizing Opportunities Award. Proceeds supported the Friends group’s work at the county’s historic sites.
A new museum at Maryland’s birthplace
The new festival is timed to follow the opening of a new St. Clement’s Island Museum. The county demolished the old building and is replacing it with a two-story facility of more than 10,000 square feet, built under a $4.4 million contract with W.M. Davis Inc. It will include a 2,598-square-foot gallery, an orientation theater, a children’s area and a hands-on “please touch” room. Construction is set to finish in January 2027, and the museum is scheduled to reopen the week of Maryland Day in March 2027.
The new exhibits will tell Maryland’s founding story from both the English and Piscataway perspectives, developed with the Piscataway tribal council, Stone said in August.
The island across the water from the museum is where it all began. On March 25, 1634, about 140 colonists aboard the Ark and the Dove landed at St. Clement’s Island. Jesuit priest Father Andrew White celebrated Mass there, and the colonists raised a large wooden cross. The Piscataway people had lived in the region for thousands of years before the English arrived. The island, once about 400 acres, has eroded to about 62 acres and is now a state park reachable only by boat.
The Oct. 14 preview will be held at Piney Point Lighthouse Museum & Historic Park, 44720 Lighthouse Road in Piney Point. The site’s 1836 lighthouse is the oldest on the Potomac River.
