Jeff Holland: Jonas and Anne Catharine Green Park an ode to remarkable Annapolis couple

Annapolis has celebrated many important women over the course of its venerable history, but one particular standout is Anne Catharine Green. Her husband, Jonas, died in 1767, leaving the widow with her husband’s debts to repay and six children to feed. Others with the same plight, but not the same backbone, might have given up and begged for alms from the parish priest, but not Anne.

Jonas’ print shop sat behind their rented home on Charles Street, and Anne pulled up the sleeves of her gown and took up her late husband’s work publishing the Maryland Gazette, forerunner of the very newspaper you’re reading now. Under her diligence and drive, the business thrived and soon she could afford to buy her house and even commission a portrait of herself by none other than Charles Wilson Peale. Before she died in 1775, the Maryland Gazette became instrumental in shaping the political landscape that led to Maryland’s fight for independence from British rule.

Jonas was quite the guy in his own right. Like his mentor, Benjamin Franklin, Jonas was a brilliant man of many talents. Historian Elihu Riley wrote that Jonas Green was not just a “dignified publisher,” but also one of the leading wits in the Tuesday Club, Annapolis’ mid-18th century version of the Algonquin Round Table. Green’s disparate titles were recorded in the club’s annals as “P.P.P.P.P.” or “poet, printer, punster, purveyor, and punchmaker.” Each weekly meeting at the stately home of one or another member began with a series of toasts, followed by a hearty meal and entertainment in the form of music, poetry, bad jokes and riddles; and apparently, Jonas Green was adept at all of those pursuits. Truly a man after my own heart, or more appropriately, I am a man after his own heart.

Jeff and Millie walk in the shadow of the Naval Academy Bridge. (Jeff Holland/Courtesy photo)

I read up on Jonas and Anne after visiting their namesake Anne Arundel County park on the north side of the Naval Academy Bridge on one of those chilly, overcast, early-March days this past week. My wonderful rescue retriever, Millie, came along, of course. The park is known locally as “Jonas Green Park,” but the actual name is Jonas and Anne Catharine Green Park. It doesn’t cover a lot of ground, only 6 acres, but the site has dramatic views across the Severn River of the U.S. Naval Academy, with the city’s age-old domes and spires sprouting above the skyline.

It lies within the shadow of the Naval Academy Bridge, built in 1994. This replaced a beautiful bascule drawbridge that was opened for new-fangled automobile traffic in 1924. There’s a remnant of that older bridge that juts out into the river a full 288 feet, providing fishermen with a high pier to dangle their lines from. (Note to the grammar police: Merriam-Webster recently declared that it’s “permissible” for people speaking English to end sentences with prepositions. What’s next, permission to dangle participles?)

I’ve been up and down this river thousands of times over the years in everything from the governor’s yacht to a staysail schooner, but I’d never seen the Severn from this vantage point. From there, you can see the other bridge spanning the river more than a mile upstream. That’s the U.S. 50/301 Bridge, which opened in 1953. You can also see a huge white mansion with a broad staircase leading down to the river’s edge. That’s Manresa, which began as a spiritual retreat for Jesuit priests in the late 1920s. It became an assisted-living facility in 1995.

Millie led me on the short loop around the park grounds, cheerfully greeting a number of well-behaved dogs, large and small. Most of the walkways are paved, and the whole park is handicap accessible. As we strolled, we noticed a squad of T-shirted midshipmen and women jogging across the bridge above us and a crew of other middies racing up the Severn in a pair of rowing shells. The path winds underneath the deck of the old bridge and links to a short stretch of beach, where a young couple were lounging on lawn chairs with their big, beautiful Rottweiler. You can launch a canoe, stand-up paddleboard or a kayak from here, but whatever you do, don’t go in for a swim. The current can be treacherous.

There are several interpretive panels explaining the site’s living shoreline and stormwater runoff pond habitats. A muddle of mallards paddled in a puddle, much to Millie’s amusement, but apart from a stray herring gull, we didn’t see much other wildlife. Lately, I’ve heard of osprey sightings in the area, but haven’t seen or heard any myself yet. The ospreys returning from Central and South America are a sure sign of spring, along with the bright yellow daffodils sprouting up through the grass here and there.

Jeff and Millie walk along the beach. (Jeff Holland/Courtesy photo)

Millie seemed to linger on the beach, wistfully eyeing the river with its still-clear winter water. Soon the water temperature will be warm enough for her to start swimming regularly. I’m sure she’d love to do it now, and I’m sure she’d be fine – I once had a retriever who would break through the ice for a chance for a swim – but I’ll keep her dry for another few weeks until spring arrives for real.

The visitor’s center at the park doubles as the headquarters and trailhead for Anne Arundel County’s extensive network of recreational trails that include the B&A Trail, BWI Trail, Broadneck Peninsula Trail and the WB&A Trail. Just think, you can hop on a bike here and ride all over the northern section of the county. That would be fun, if I could figure out a way to bring Millie along.

Reading about Anne Catharine Green, I couldn’t help imagining a bronze statue of her with her printing press adorning the Westgate Circle. I can’t think of a better way to honor an amazing woman, creative and determined and intelligent, the first female publisher in America at a time when few women worked outside of the home, editor of the first newspaper in Maryland and one of the first in the Colonies. It would be a monument to all of the strong women in Annapolis’ long history.