Trolley service targeting marinas, beaches and businesses from northern Calvert into Anne Arundel County is planned for the summer. The Beach Trolley Association plans to operate a trolley that would run between the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum and the Deale area in South County.

The idea is to provide weekend transportation for boaters, visitors and residents to go to the many shops, grocery stores and restaurants in these communities. The BTA is working on a schedule for the trolley's nearly 55 stops along Routes 261, 2 and 256, which would include some residential communities, such as Burnt Oaks in North Beach. The service is planned for weekends from May 23 through Sept. 1. The hours would be from 3 p.m. Friday through 1 a.m. Saturday; 9 a.m. Saturday through 1 a.m. Sunday; and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays and holidays. A one-way trolley ride will cost 25 cents.

For the 16th year, the City of Annapolis was named a Tree City USA Community by the Arbor Day Foundation in association with the National Association of State Foresters and the USDA Forest Service. To receive the award, the City met four standards including maintaining a tree board or department, a tree protection ordinance, a comprehensive community forestry program, and an Arbor Day observance. Annapolis also received the Tree City USA Growth Award for its efforts to fund tree-planting on private property. The City of Annapolis strives to cover at least 50% of its surfaces with trees.

"For Fishing, Family and Fun: Seven Decades of Communal Living by the Chesapeake Bay," a new exhibit featuring extensive research conducted by the Shady Side Rural Heritage Society into the occupancy of the Captain Salem Avery House Museum building from 1924 to 1989 by the National Masonic Fishing and Country Club, will be opened on Sunday, April 27. The Museum is located at 1418 EW Shady Side Road, and there is no admission charge.

The professionally mounted exhibit will feature 15 panels - or Story Boards - with photographs and quotes depicting various aspects of the Club's activities. In addition to the panels, there will be displays and artifacts. A catalog will also be available with complete exhibit text and three essays, including a memoir by Paul Foer and scholarly essays by Jeffrey T. Coster and Ilana Abramovitch. Former Shady Side Rural Heritage Society Director Janet Surrett took the lead in securing four grants to research and tell this little known but nationally significant story. For more information, call (410) 867 4486, or visit the Museum's web site, www.averyhouse.org.

The Banneker-Douglass Museum has opened its new exhibit, 'Seeking Liberty: Annapolis, an Imagined Community,' an archaeology exhibit featuring artifacts excavated in some of Annapolis' most historic sites, never before displayed in a single, comprehensive presentation. Celebrating three centuries of African American and European heritage, the Banneker-Douglass Museum is hosting this exhibition as its way of commemorating the 300th Anniversary of the signing of Annapolis Royal Charter. The exhibit investigates and celebrates the 'quest for liberty' in Annapolis. There is also a comprehensive website devoted to the exhibit, complete with an exhibit 'blog,' at http://www.bsos.umd.edu/anth/aia/seeking_liberty/.

One of the most interesting pieces in the exhibition is a piece of printer's type depicting a 'Death's Head,' which was excavated at the Jonas Green House in Annapolis and is on loan from HistoryQuest. The image was used to protest the Stamp Act in 1765.

The exhibit will run through November 29. The Banneker-Douglass Museum is located in the old Mount Moriah A.M.E. Church at 84 Franklin Street in Annapolis (off Church Circle in the Annapolis historic district). The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Parking is available by shuttle from the Naval Academy Stadium parking lot, and there are nearby commercial parking garages and limited on-street parking. For more information, contact the museum by telephone at (410) 216-6180, fax at (410) 974-2553, or email at BDMPrograms@mdp.state.md.us.

A new heritage library collection sponsored by Anne Arundel County Public Library (AACPL) is open to the public at the Anne Arundel County Archaeology Lab at Historic London Town in Edgewater, Maryland. 

This growing special reference collection encompasses over 360 specialized books devoted to the material culture of the 17th and 18th centuries, with an emphasis on works related to our county's earliest history.  These volumes are available for on-site public use and scholarly research at the lab facility.  Internet access to JSTOR, a digitized collection of thousands of journal articles is also available.

The heritage library is available by appointment only.  The archaeology lab is generally open to the public Monday-Friday between 9:00 am-3:00 pm.  Please call the lab at 410-222-1318 if you have questions concerning how to access this special collection.  The lab is located at Historic London Town, 839 Londontown Road, Edgewater, MD  21037.

The Annapolis Maritime Museum recently completed the first phase of a new education initiative, Chesapeake Champions, a year-long Title One Extended Day program launched in October with a $10,000 grant from Bank of America. Through three six-week sessions, more than 100 students from Eastport Elementary School are connecting to the environment and culture of the Chesapeake Bay through hands-on, life-changing activities that are a direct application of their school curricula in reading, math, and science.

Each week the students measure water temperature, salinity, and clarity; they observe, measure, and document the Museum's terrapins and oysters; and account for funds they are raising to support the upkeep of the terrapins. The first six weeks included a boat ride on the Bay the first for a third of the children an in-depth exploration of oysters and terrapins, meeting a working waterman, and writing their own Bay-inspired song with folklorist and song-writer Janie Meneely. At the end of each session students record facts and their thoughts in observation logs, which their teachers review and respond to with thought-provoking questions and comments. The next six-week session starts in late January.

The heritage area’s new publication, Discover Four Rivers: A History Explorer’s Guide, was recognized at Historic Annapolis Foundation’s annual meeting and awards ceremony with the 2007 Community Service Preservation Award. The attractive 30-page guide was designed in tandem with a detailed map of the area with 130 listings of historic buildings, monuments and sites, with support from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, Anne Arundel County and the City of Annapolis. The booklet features lively photos and illustrations on every page and describes thematic “trails” that the history explorer can follow to learn about our area’s rich history and heritage. Order your copy today ($8, plus $2 S/H) by calling our office at 410-222-1805.

Annapolis Alive! has been awarded a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to conduct a city wide reading of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The program is to be conducted in the Spring of 2008 as part of the 300th anniversary of the city charter and the Big Read, a nationwide reading initiative. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents the Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum of Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is related to, and named after, St. John's College graduate Francis Scott Key. St John's College, Anne Arundel County Library System, the City of Annapolis and the City of Annapolis Royal, Canada, will be joining in creating the programming.

The Shady Side Rural Heritage Society has launched a new website, 'Seasons of a Chesapeake Bay Waterman,' that contains extensive educational materials for teachers and students studying the history and ecology of the Chesapeake Bay. The site offers a 139-page activity guide for educators, which can be downloaded as a whole or browsed by individual sections or topics. The online version of the activity guide was financed in part with a Mini Grant from Four Rivers Heritage Area. Visit the site at www.chesapeakewaterman.org.

Maryland has designated 19 byways that encompass 2,487 miles of beautiful roads, which offer a taste of Maryland s scenic beauty, history and culture. Take the roads less traveled including four entirely new byways featuring nationally significant themes: the Star-Spangled Banner, Antietam Campaign, Booth s Escape and the Mason and Dixon byways. Anne Arundel and Calvert Counties are home to the newly-expanded 'Roots and Tides' Byway, that runs 47 miles from Annapolis to Plum Point and features the scenic historic South County landmarks of the Four Rivers Heritage Area.

A 176-page guidebook featuring Maryland's Byways, developed by the Maryland SHA in partnership with Maryland's office of Tourism development and the National Scenic Byways program, has just been published, and will be available free of charge to the public at Welcome Centers and other centers for visitor information.

To link to the State Highway Administration's Maryland Byways map, click here.