Where in the World is Coltons Point and St. Clements Island?

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Cross and Light House - St. Clement's Island

First let me acknowledge my beloved publishing partners here at the Coltons Point Times.

Beamish - Neapolitan Mastiff

CuChulainn Deo Irie (Coolin) - Irish Wolf Hound

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As for Coltons Point and St. Clements Island, it is a question I get occasionally and since there are so many new readers I want to address it. We are the only newspaper in the oldest continuously lived in chartered settlement in the colonial United States. Yes, older than Jamestown, older than Plymouth and older than St. Mary's City, places most people think of as the oldest. If you are not familiar with US history, the three places I mentioned all ceased to exist by the 1690's. That means we existed 142 years before our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and went to war with England.



St. Clements Island just offshore from Coltons Point was the landing site for 321 colonists on two tiny ships, the Ark and the Dove, in 1634 and the area has been lived in ever since. It is also the first place in the world with religious freedom as the first English charter guaranteed religious toleration. We are also the site of the first landing of Roman Catholics, first Mass performed in the colonies, first Jesuit priests and the first colony to live peacefully with the Native Americans. If that isn't enough we are the site where the first relic from the True Cross of Jesus came to America and miracles were performed with it.



While the original St. Clement's Manor land grant was huge, stretching all the way to Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York City, none of which existed at the time, the immediate area around Coltons Point is known as the 7th District.

For those of you not familiar with the 7th District in Southern Maryland I thought I would offer a little primer in the highly unlikely event you ever fall off the edge of the world and find yourself here. First of all it is one of the oldest landing points for the colonization of the original thirteen colonies way back in the early 1600's. St. Clements Island, the actual place where the English pilgrims landed, is just off Coltons Point where the pilgrims first saw the Indians and set foot in Maryland. These are the last two places on the map in the 7th District at the Potomac River.

Now I am not a pilgrim nor related to pilgrims but an awful lot of people here are and it seems that the older the family the more likely they inter-married with other families that have been around about 383 years, since 1634. That means when you meet a Dorsey, Bailey, Combs, McKay, and all the other names you see on signs down here you might just be meeting the relatives of all the prominent and aristocratic families.

The 7th District folks came here for religious and other freedom and for the last 383 years have been fighting anyone who tried to tame them. Long before the existence of New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, DC these folks had established rights to the 7th District. The early settlers were a combination of water men, farmers and tobacco farmers and starting in 1639 other people started trying to take this place away from them.

Nessie in Scotland

Bessie in Maryland

The local Native Americans never tried, I suspect they knew better, and this was about the only place in America where the settlers and Native Americans lived in harmony which tells you a lot about the people who settled as they respected the rights of the Natives. Since it was the only place in the New World that promised religious freedom a lot of other people wanted to stop them. The Puritans and a few other groups seemed to think they had the only connection to God.

So the locals fought off the other white men for about a hundred years before they joined the fight against the Brits as the concept of freedom just kept spreading. In a couple of wars the British actually attacked this area which goes to show military intelligence hasn't much changed after all these years. The 7th District eventually became the last frontier in Maryland which it remains to this day.

Along the way the Civil War was fought and being we were well south of the Mason Dixon line but still in Union controlled territory, the 7th District became one of the primary smuggling points for getting supplies and arms to the Confederates since the Union had blockaded all the southern ports. One Union officer said at night the Potomac River was filled with black painted boats sailing supplies across the river to the Confederates in Virginia.

Upcoming scandals we will be reporting on include the English and French support for the Confederate army that was channeled through this area and the fact the English backed John Wilkes Booth and was to pick him up here after the killing of President Lincoln. Of course there is also the disappearance of Booth for almost a week during the manhunt in the area of the 7th District.

Eventually the rest of Maryland got civilized and soon the election of governor in the state always seemed to be tied between the Baltimore Democrats and the Washington DC area Republicans and it was the band of outcasts down in the 7th District that decided many an election throughout the 20th century. I suspect this was the way the folks of the 7th District got even with the politicians. Many a person can recall seeing a candidate for governor from up north sneak into the District, spend a weekend sharing some moonshine with the old boys, and going home to win the election. In the 7th District the vote could be controlled as about everyone was a Catholic Democrat and they knew statewide elections were dependent on them for success.

We had our share of celebrities as well but they always seemed to live just across the water from the 7th District. From Coltons Point you could see where George Washington was born and where Robert E. Lee was born on the Virginia shore.

There is no local government nor local police in the entire 7th District as the people could never see the need for the bureaucrats. Most justice was handed out locally including disposal without the expense of trial or jail for anyone terrorizing the people. No crime wave lasted long.

Of course to this day there are no governments, street lights, stop lights, sidewalks, sewers, water pipes, gas lines or anything else found in most civilizations. The fire and emergency personnel are volunteers. About half of the roads planned for Coltons Point have never been built and you better check the goods in the local store for expiration dates before you buy anything.

People here still eat fish, oysters, crab and clams harvested from the river although the politicians up north have done about everything possible to destroy the environment. More than nine Bald Eagles share year round residence in the Point along with many a strange specimen that can be seen wandering out of the swamps and wetlands on dark and foggy nights.

There is a distinct social structure that has evolved over the centuries involving the Ancients, Water men, Yuppies, Yippies, Yappies, Come Downers and Come Backers.  Since there are no Native Americans left our version of the ancients are the hillbillies, moon shiners, deinstitutionalized head cases, religious zealots, and of course Confederates who run around singing "Don't give a damn what the Yankees say the South's gonna rise again."

The Water men are the raucous survivors of the original colonists, the fisher men, crab men, oyster men, clam men, eel men, (yes I said eels as in scary slithering things on the river bottom) and the people who supported them like the marinas, crab shacks, oyster and clam processing joints etc. There aren't many left and that is one of the enduring tragedies of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The Yuppies are the new rich who move here to get away from what they spent their lives working to get. Yippies are the younger generation now beyond youth but still trying to find their way through life with a soft spot for environmental issues, nature, birds and privacy. Yappies are Yuppies and Yippies with a big mouth who show up expecting to find all the laws of more civilized places like dog catchers, police and all the other conveniences of modern society.

The Come Downers are the city folk who discovered the quaint place along the river and made their way here to escape where they are from or to exploit the area for material gain which never seems to happen. Finally the Come Backers are the kids of the Ancient families who escaped long ago only to discover the rest of the world will never replace what they had here in the first place and eventually they find their way back home.

Down here the Postmaster knows everyone on a first name basis. The local bar doesn't want any more customers as that might put them in a higher tax bracket. There is no fast food, no place to eat period without driving about 10-20 miles, and little need to put on airs. It don't matter whether you are rich or poor, you all eat crabs, oysters and clams the same.

Now that is a little of what you find down here in the 7th District of Southern Maryland, ferocious defenders of individual freedom a lot of character from a lot of characters, a place steeped deep in history, a keen sense of fair play, a desire to help your neighbors no matter what their social status might be, a bit cynical when it comes to the promises of the government or elected officials, but people who will never turn their backs on people in need, unless, of course they deserve it.

Coltons Point is a quiet village of about 250 people on the Potomac River where it is seven miles wide, just before it reaches the Chesapeake. Bay. Though we are only 60 miles from Washington, DC there are no governments, no police, no traffic lights, no street lights, no sidewalks, no water, no sewer, no gas lines, no churches, no city hall, no fire department, no sirens, no bureaucrats of any kind and not much of anything in the way of commercial development. We value freedom and independence above all else. This year we celebrate our 384th anniversary.

None of that has anything to do with the Coltons Point Times (CPT) except I happen to live here. Before I found myself in Coltons Point I lived in Iowa, Arizona, Nebraska, California, Washington DC, Virginia, New Jersey and Kentucky. In addition I had worked several years in New York City and Nashville.



Perhaps that is why the CPT seems to cover a lot of national and international issues. It may also explain why an online newspaper in one of the smallest villages in the USA has up to 144,000 readers every month. The last time I checked we had readers from 96 different nations, all 50 states, and Washington, DC.

Our mission is to tell the truth, be an independent voice, share interesting material with our readers and help keep you informed with the inside information on government, politics, science, health, housing, music and a whole bunch of other stuff. When the world stage gets boring we offer a little history and local color that may be of interest. We want to keep the news makers from politicians to news media, Wall Street to the Middle East honest and that has been a lot of work lately.


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We appreciate having you in our family and hope you check in for the latest news often. Thank you.

Jim Putnam, Publisher