The town of London, founded in 1683 on the South River in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, quickly grew to become a thriving tobacco port. By the period 1700-1730 London had reached a size and economic vitality which rivaled the colonial capitals of Williamsburg and Annapolis.

Although it was the location of the Anne Arundel County Courthouse between 1684 and 1695 (and was once considered as the site for the colonial capital of Maryland), London differed from Williamsburg and Annapolis in that it owed its ultimate success, not from its importance as a seat of government, but as a center for trade. Ships laden with merchandise from Europe and the Caribbean would arrive at London to fill the many stores in town and to await the arrival of the year's tobacco crop for the voyage home. Slavers from Africa arrived with their human cargoes. Some of the wealthiest merchants in the county, many newly arrived from Scotland, built their homes near their stores in London.

A secondary industry of tradesmen arose to supply the needs of the planters, merchants and ships captains. Rope makers, barrel makers, leather workers, carpenters and shipbuilders plied their trades in the busy port. Inn holder housed and fed the often large transient population, tailors clothed them, and doctors ministered to their needs. One doctor, London Town citizen Richard Hill, was an important figure in the history of horticultural science and contributed plant specimens for collections in Europe.

Since London town was on the main Road between Williamsburg, Annapolis and Philadelphia, ferries were established to take travelers across the South River. Many of the most notable figures of the period (including George Washington) were to travel this route frequently. Ultimately, the ferries were to outlast the town itself.

Almost as quickly as it arose, London Town would fail. In 1747 the Maryland Assembly passed legislation limiting tobacco export to specific inspection stations they designated. London was not among them. A decline in the 1760's and 1770's was rapidly accelerated by an economic depression during the Revolutionary War. Only a handful of houses and the ferry were still occupied in the 19th century.

Today, the house built by ferry master William Brown in about 1760, as both his home and a tavern, is the last visible remnant of this once bustling seaport. Beneath the twenty-three acre county owned park, however, lies the archaeological remains of a significant portion of lost London. Here, perhaps ten of the 30-40 homes which once existed in the town await excavation and discovery.

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The Lord Mayor's House
Rumney's Tavern