Prince George's County, one of Maryland's most populous counties, has a rich and vibrant history. From agriculture to industry, school life to religious life, trolleys, trains, and tobacco, the people of this area share a distinctive regional heritage and a great pride in the communities they have built. With numerous recognized historic sites, Prince George's County boasts, among others, Mount Calvert, the only structure remaining at the site of the first county seat; Melwood Park and the Magruder House, both visited by George Washington; and His Lordship's Kindness, a five-part Georgian mansion. Other historic buildings were not elegant manors, but functional public facilities. The College Park Airport holds the record as the oldest continuously operating airport in the world, and the Surratt House played a role in the assassination plot of Abraham Lincoln. But the everyday lives of citizens are represented here as well, in the images of early residents, their homes and businesses, of the city services and social events, of elementary school classes and congregations. All can be found within these pages.

Southern Maryland is made up of a collection of peninsulas covered in low rolling hills, fields, forests, swamps, and waterways leading to the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. As such, this area enjoyed relative isolation and small population for over three centuries despite its proximity to cities such as Alexandria, Annapolis, Baltimore, and Washington. Those who did settle here developed a close connection to its farms, waterways, and natural remoteness. Southern Maryland, known for the state's earliest Colonial settlements, is composed of three of the state's oldest counties: St. Mary's, Charles, and Calvert. Although largely agricultural and maritime in outlook, this region was also the birthplace of the nation's ideal of religious freedom and many of its greatest citizens, including leaders of the Revolution, the early national government, and the state. Many of their homes and churches survive as historic landmarks, or their existence has been documented and preserved for posterity.

Includes the Union's Annual report.

Lexington Market was established in 1782 by Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard, who donated a plot of land in Baltimore's "western precincts" for a public market. Accessible to farmers from the outlying countryside, Howard's Hill Market, as it was known, became an instant success. Undeterred by the lack of a proper market house, farmers set up plank stalls and began selling fresh meat, eggs, and vegetables to the burgeoning city's population. Almost as soon as a market house was built in 1803, petitions circulated to expand it, a process that continued throughout the 19th century until the market included three block-long sheds with hundreds of stalls spilling down neighboring streets. Far from signaling Lexington Market's end, a disastrous fire in 1949 provided an opportunity for a modern facility with refrigeration and stoves, enabling each stall keeper to bake, roast, or steam according to his own unique recipe. With the addition of an arcade, the market has continued to reinvent itself while maintaining a place in Baltimore's heart for 225 years.