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Houses, farms and public use will coexist on former Jesuit land
State purchased two parcels this year
Friday, Aug. 14, 2009
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When the Maryland Department of Natural Resources took title to 1,700 acres in St. Mary's in late April, the state was taking over land owned by the Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic Clergymen for hundreds of years.
The Jesuits needed money to fund medical care for its aging members, and the state, which is aiming to protect waterfront land from development, paid $15.8 million for 910 acres at Kitts Point in St. Inigoes and $14 million for 790 acres at Newtowne Neck in Compton.
The Jesuits allowed farming on the lands for generations and some houses even went up.
Now that the state has ownership of the two tracts of land, what happens to those tenants?
There is a house on the water at the end of a gravel road in Newtowne Neck. There are barns and six houses on the land at Kitts Point. Both properties are peninsulas.
Tim Brower, Eastern region administrator for the land acquisition and planning division of Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said the farming leases there will be extended for at least five years.
The tenants living there won't be going anywhere soon either, he said last week.
"When you have acreage of this size, these folks absolutely do help with the management of the land," Brower said.
In large transactions such as these, many times houses frequently come along as part of the deal, he said.
The two properties at Newtowne Neck and Kitts Point are "currently open to the public" as planning is under way for their use. "In the meantime, these properties are publicly accessible and we will have signage up to that effect," he said. People are already using the lands respectfully since the state took possession, Brower said.
Kitts Point in St. Inigoes will probably become a state forest, Brower said, and Newtowne Neck will probably become a state park, with passive recreational activities. Access to the water would be by canoe or kayak instead of traditional boat launches.
"I still think it was a wonderful thing they did," said Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D) of the state acquisition. The county by itself would have never been able to protect the Navy facility at Webster Field from encroachment with such a purchase, he said.
St. Mary's County government has several public landings on the Potomac River side, and Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D) said he is not interested in either Kitts Point or Newtowne Neck becoming like Point Lookout State Park, the most traveled destination in St. Mary's on an annual basis.
At Newtowne Neck, he said, "The road going into is as bad as the one going into Point Lookout."
He said he wouldn't mind it if the property stayed in farming longer than five years.
The overall purchase of Jesuit properties in St. Mary's, Charles and Cecil counties was 4,473 acres for $56.9 million. The deeds for the two properties in St. Mary's date back to 1793, but the church has had ownership of them since shortly after the founding of Maryland in 1634.
