1. Oxon Cove Farm & Oxon Hill Farm
Explore farm life and how it's changed over time by visiting the outbuildings and animal pens of a working farm, taking a wagon ride, and by participating in hands-on activities and living history programs. A self-guided trail interprets Native American lifeways, plantation life during the War of 1812, a fugitive slave escape, and the use of a site as a farm for St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
2. Oxon Hill Manor
Situated on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River, this 49-room Georgian-style mansion was built circa 1928. The grounds include formal gardens and a reflecting pool. An earlier mansion of the same name was constructed near the site in 1710. It was home to nephews of George Washington and the nephew of John Henson, the first president elected by the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation.
3. Fort Foote
This Civil War-era fort was built as part of a ring of forts enclosing the nation's capital. Sited on a commanding bluff, Fort Foote was designed, along with Battery Rodgers on the Virginia shore, to guard the water approach to Washington, D.C. Though once armed with ten large Rodman and Parrot cannons, only two guns remain.
4. Fort Washington
Fort Washington overlooks the Potomac River and offers grand
views of Washington, D.C., and the Virginia shoreline. Built as Fort Warburton in 1809, it was destroyed by its own garrison to prevent it from being captured by the British during the War of 1812. Pierre L'Enfant, designer of Washington, D.C., was involved in the reconstruction, which was completed in 1824. Extensive renovations followed in the 1840s. Until the Civil War, Fort Washington was the only defense for the Nation's Capital.
5. St. Mary's Catholic Church
The official recorded history of this parish dates back to 1640 when Father Andrew White, one of the colonists to sail with Leonard Calvert to found Maryland, baptized the Emperor of the Piscataway Indians, Chitomachen, his family, and members of his tribe. Originally, the parish functioned as a mission, extending from the first European settlement, St. Mary's City, to Anacostia. In 1838 the first church was built in Piscataway. In 1901, this structure was torn down to make way for the present "Little Church."
6. St. Ignatius Catholic Church
Called the "prettiest little church in Southern Maryland" when it was consecrated in 1891, St. Ignatius Church is a rare surviving example of Queen Anne style ecclesiastical architecture. The cemetery in the churchyard has stones bearing the names of many of the country's oldest families, including that of the mother of Mary Surratt (accomplice
to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth).
7. Broad Creek Historic District
Broad Creek, the site of the early colonial town of "Aire," still retains its rural character. The town thrived as a tobacco port throughout the 1700s with warehouses, taverns, stores, and a shipyard. In 1692, St. John's Episcopal Church was founded, one of the original parishes established by the Church of England in Maryland. The existing brick church was built in the 1760s.
Other historic properties in the Broad Creek Historic District include Harmony Hall (c. 1760), Piscataway House (c. 1750), and the ruins of Want Water. The Broad Creek Historic District is anchored by Harmony Hall Regional Center operated by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. A variety of public recreation and fine arts classes are offered at the center and concerts are held in the John Addison Concert Hall.
8. Piscataway Park
Created to preserve the views from Mount Vernon across the river, Piscataway Park encompasses approximately 5,000 acres and stretches for six miles from Piscataway Creek to Marshall Hall along the Potomac River. Visitors enjoy a public fishing pier and boat launch, two boardwalks over fresh water tidal wetlands, and a variety of trails through meadow, woods and farm.
9. National Colonial Farm
Costumed interpreters offer visitors a glimpse into the lives of middle-class colonial farmers, their animals, and their agriculture at this outdoor living history museum within Piscataway Park. Structures include a circa 1770 farm dwelling, an 18th century tobacco barn, a smokehouse, and an out-kitchen, set amid farm fields and a garden with heirloom 18th century plantings. A modern Ecosystem Farm demonstrates sustainable, organic farming and educates visitors about responsible land management practices.
10. Hard Bargain Farm
Operated by the Alice Ferguson Foundation as an environmental center since 1954, this working farm on the banks of the Potomac River welcomes thousands of school children each year to enjoy experience that encourage connections between people, the natural environment, farming and the cultural heritage of the Potomac River Watershed, leading to personal environmental responsibility. AFF sponsors the annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup, and is open to the public for the Spring Farm Festival and Oktoberfest.
11. Henson Creek Stream Valley Park & Trail
Located in the southern portion of Prince George's County, the trail provides a scenic, recreational route through Henson Creek Stream Valley Park for hiking, biking, jogging, horseback riding, and in-line skating. The six-mile long trail extends from Temple Hill Road southward to Oxon Hill Rod, winding through Henson Creek Neighborhood Park, across Brinkley Road through the Henson Creek Stream Valley Park, and alongside Rosecroft Raceway, Tucker Roof Community Park, Tucker Road Ice Rink, and Henson Creek Golf Course.
12. Louise F. Corca Regional Park
This park in Clinton, Maryland has a lake for boating and fishing, campsites, hiking trails, tennis courts, picnic facilities and an excellent playground. Clearwater Nature Center offer engaging exhibits, a small indoor pond, live animal displays, a lapidary laboratory, seasonal herb and butterfly gardens, nature walks and other interpretive programs.
13. Surratt's House Museum
This mid-1800s house was owned by Mary Surratt, first woman to be executed by the US government for being found guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Built in 1852,the house was also a tavern and hostelry, a post office, and polling place in the crucial decade before the Civil War. During the war, it was a safe house for the Confederate underground, which flourished in Southern Maryland. The Museum now offers exhibits, a film, tours and special programs interpreting mid-19th century life and the fascinating events surrounding the Lincoln conspiracy.
14. Poplar Hill on His Lordship's Kindness
One of the finest of a number of Georgian plantation houses built by the country's wealthy tobacco planters during the late 18th century, Poplar Hill on His Lordship's Kindness is one of three National Historic Landmarks in Prince George's County. Formal in landscape as well as architecture, the mansion's beautiful grounds include terraces with aged boxwoods and specimen trees, all surrounded by a 130-acre operated horse farm. Tours and public programs focus on stories of the people that lived here, including the role African-Americans played from before the Civil War through Reconstruction.
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