Synopsis
In 1700, Maryland’s new capital at Annapolis was a hamlet in a wilderness whose shoreline looked, according to one new arrival, “like a forest standing in water.” By the middle of the 18th century a remarkable collection of men and women had made it into “one of the most sparkling communities in British America."
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From the Publisher
This brisk account of the founding and evolution of one of the liveliest of America's colonial capitals, interweaves brief biographies of seventeenth-century men and women who contributed mightily to building a colony, then a state. This lively and amusing book offers an account of cultural, architectural, commercial, and political life in Annapolis, interweaving biographies of several of its more enterprising residents, including two signers of the Declaration of Independence.
This lively account of the founding and evolution of one of the liveliest of the provincial capitals begins in the late seventeenth century with Francis Nicholson, first royal governor of Maryland, who coveted for his brand new city the baroque designs of European cityscapes. He executed his ideas with flair—and with some charming imperfections that are still visible in today's Annapolis (visitors discover that “radial” avenues are not radial after all). Then brief interwoven biographies of remarkable and enterprising Annapolitans of the eighteenth century—two signers of the Declaration of Independence, an entrepreneur, a physician, politicians, journalists, and artisans—provide a dramatic view of life in the bustling city as well as understanding of the deep cultural, commercial, maritime, political, and architectural influences of Annapolis on the American colonies and the emerging nation.
Norman K. Risjord is professor emeritus of American history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Jefferson: A Biography, Jefferson's America, 1760–1815, and studies in an educational series of “Representative Americans.” He divides his time between Annapolis and his farm in Wisconsin.
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