Events

Past Events

View recordings of past lectures, seminars, tours and workshops, as well as helpful training videos on how to use various records in our collections in our free online Presentation Library.

November Lunch and Learn: Saint George's Island, 1776: Historical, Archaeological and Landscape Analysis of an Overlooked Battle of the American Revolution

Learn about the largest Revolutionary War battle fought in Maryland, when British troops under the governor of Virginia, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, landed on Saint George’s Island in the Potomac River in St. Mary’s County on July 17, 1776.

New work reveals that it was a larger and more protracted battle than previously thought, involving American regular troops and militiamen facing off against regular British soldiers and Loyalist militia soldiers, as well as over 70 British naval vessels.

Washington College archaeologists have worked with Kennon Williams Landscape Studio, under contract to Preservation Maryland, to prepare a battlefield and landscape assessment of the island. Dr. John L. Seidel and Charles Fithian will describe the historical research, GIS mapping, and a detailed battlefield analysis that has revealed a far more complex and important episode in the American War for Independence. It is a surprising and little-known story, with unrealized potential for future archaeological research.

Dr. John L. Seidel is the CEO of Historic St. Mary’s City. He has led investigations of the ancient and modern Maya (Guatemala and Belize), conducted marine research for the National Park Service as well as terrestrial and marine archaeology throughout the eastern United Sates. He has taught at Rutgers University, the University of Maryland College Park, Washington College, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Despite Dr. Seidel’s wide-ranging geographic experience, his real passion is the Chesapeake region during the 17th and 18th. His current position allows him to explore that interest at one of the country’s premier historic seventeenth-century sites, the location of Maryland’s first capital (1634-1695).

Dr. Seidel received a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, after completing his undergraduate studies at Drew University. He has published more than 80 articles, book chapters, and research monographs, and actively lectures to public and professional groups.

Charles Fithian is a historical archaeologist. From 1986-2014, he was the Curator of Archaeology for the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, where he managed the state’s 4+ million artifact collection and participated in many archaeological projects. From 2013-2023, he was affiliated with Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland as a professor of anthropology and staff archaeologist.

Fithian holds a master’s degree in History from Salisbury University, with a concentration in Colonial and Revolutionary America. He is the author of “‘Master Pope’s Fort’: Archaeological Investigations of a Fortification of the English Civil Wars in St. Mary’s City,” published in 2021. He is currently at work on a social history of the Delaware Regiment during the American Revolution, and the documentation of Delaware’s military and logistical landscape during the American Revolution, as well as a project entitled “‘A System, concise, easy and efficient’: John Dickinson and the Defense of the Delaware State, 1781-1782.” He lives in Dover, with his wife Diane and Tiki the Wonder Cat.

December Lunch and Learn: The Missionary: William Levington, Founder of St. James First African Protestant Episcopal Church

Explore the life and times of the first ordained African American priest in the American South. Professor Lawrence Jackson will describe the life and works of William Levington, the founder of the St. James First African Protestant Episcopal Church in Baltimore in 1824. The church, now known as St. James in Lafayette Square, recently celebrated its 200th anniversary.

Lawrence Jackson is the author of the award-winning books Chester B. Himes: A Biography (W.W. Norton 2017), The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics (Princeton 2010), My Father’s Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War (Chicago 2012) and Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius, 1913-1952 (Wiley 2002). His latest books are Hold It Real Still: Clint Eastwood, Race, and the Cinema of the American West (Johns Hopkins University Press 2022) and Shelter: A Black Tale from Homeland, Baltimore (Graywolf 2022). He teaches English and history at Johns Hopkins University and writes occasionally for Harper’s Magazine.

January Lunch and Learn: “Baltimore's Own” Soldiers in World War I: No Longer Lost to History

From the first day Camp Meade opened in 1917 to the last day of World War I, draftees from the Baltimore area—and the rest of Maryland—played a crucial and controversial role in bringing the Great War to an end. Hear the incredible story of the 313th Regiment of the 79th Division as never before, told through the first-hand accounts of the doughboys who went over the top and charged into merciless enemy fire and accomplished what their French ally insisted was simply impossible to achieve.

Time after time the French stormed the German-held heights of Montfaucon over the preceding three years. Time after time they failed miserably. The 313th—affectionately dubbed “Baltimore’s Own” by its adoring cigar-chomping colonel—did so in less than two days. But the cost was high and controversy over its battlefield success has followed the regiment for more than a hundred years. Author Mike Martin spent more than a decade meticulously researching and writing this epic story and brings it to life through the penned words these soldiers recorded themselves in tattered diaries, memoirs, and wartime letters from “over there.”

Mike Martin is a retired long-time Baltimore County high school teacher who was the coordinator of Lansdowne High School’s Academy of Finance program. Affiliated with the National Academy Foundation, Lansdowne was one of only a few Maryland public high schools, and 200 secondary schools in the nation to offer the five-course program in personal finance. Before joining the teaching ranks at age 50, Martin worked in the private sector. Prior to that he was a journalist, working as an editor for the local weekly paper in his hometown Catonsville community. He also spent time as a reporter for both the Baltimore Sun and News American daily papers. It was his passion for writing, and history that prompted him to write his recently published book, Baltimore’s Own: Courage, controversy and the crucial role of the 313th Regiment to end World War I (2024).