Eastport digs for history

Archaeology: Annapolis' other half seeks grave of early governor to stake rival claim to past.

Where's the colonial real-estate mogul,

Who owned all of Eastport and half of Bay Ridge?

Nobody knows where they buried the gentleman,

Chaser of steeples, breeder of steeds;

Governor over our own little merry land;

But nobody knows what his epitaph reads.

Sam Ogle, his father, was lain 'neath St. Anne's

Along with Ben's infantile brother;

They were moved to make way for the second church plans

But to where, no one's quite yet discovered

So there's oodles of Ogles, but no one knows where!

No monument commemorates them;

They might be unmarked on the grounds of Bel Air,

Ogle's Prince George's County estate, then;

Or they might be interred at his Tolly Point farm,

The place long since renamed Bay Ridge;

Or maybe where Lafayette's troops stacked their arms,

Right there by the Eastport bridge

Ben let it be known that none should complain

On the day that fate cut his life short;

If eternal contentment was Ben Ogle's aim,

Where else would he lie, but Eastport?

So if, while out mucking about in the yard,

Your spade strikes a stick or a stone,

Look keenly at what you're about to discard

It just might be Ben Ogle's bones!-

Jefferson Holland

Poet Laureate of Eastport (Composed while perched on the tomb of Edgar Allen Poe, on March 17, 2000)