Kings Landing Park is located west of Huntingtown, along the shores of the Patuxent River.  With Cocktown Creek serving as its northern boundary, natural resources abound in the park and have attracted people for at least hundreds, and likely thousands of years.  Preliminary archaeological investigations reveal that Native Americans utilized these resources in the period immediately before the arrival of European colonists and long before that.  John Smith’s 1612 map of the Chesapeake depicts Native villages and hamlets all along the Patuxent River and archaeological sites immediately outside park boundaries contain evidence of approximately 10,000 years of Native occupations.

The park encompasses a portion of the “Kingslanding” plantation where the King family enslaved numerous African Americans, whose descendants still reside in the Huntingtown area.  Notably, Benjamin Kent, grandson of persons enslaved at Kingslanding, was drafted into the United States Army in 1918 and died that year in service of his country and is buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France.  The Baltimore YMCA acquired the property in 1946.  Around 1950, the YMCA established Camp Mohawk at Kings Landing Park, a summer camp facility for African American youth from inner city Baltimore.  Some of the cabins have been restored and the history is described in wayside signs.

Today, the park is managed by the Calvert County Department of Parks & Recreation’s Natural Resources Division and offers many recreational opportunities including trails, fishing, day and overnight programs, and much more.

For more information

https://calvertparks.org/klp.html