Patuxent

The Patuxent flows between the Potomac and Patapsco rivers to Chesapeake Bay. Indigenous people lived along its banks long before English settlement; at Pig Point, traces of dwellings and pottery reveal a long history of habitation and exchange in the region. The river's Algonquian name has several proposed meanings, including “place where tobacco grows.”

John Smith mapped the river as Pawtuxunt after travelling upstream in 1608. English settlements later spread along its banks, and by 1705 the Patuxent Iron Works was shipping iron downriver. In 1814, during the war with Britain, Commodore Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Bay Flotilla was trapped in the river. His men destroyed their vessels to prevent their capture, and British troops landed farther downstream at Benedict before marching on Washington.