In case someone missed this, refers to Catholic Parishes Posted by: Joan Marie Meyering <joantoni@open.org> to Charles Co Maryland Group. Allen's Fresh runs off the end of the Wicomico River and the swamp runs northward off Allen's Fresh. That takes it north a little east LaPlata (county seat). In the lower reaches it is just a maze of small branches, in the north east of Waldorf it is one main channel. I was always a bit puzzled about it because I knew Tom Harbin & Booth hid out in it, and to me a swamp is more of a flat marshy area with high grasses like in coastal flats, and I couldn't see how anyone could hide out in that. Zekiah is dark and wet with many thinnish trees which makes it dark and rather sinister - a great hiding place. The name is Indian, of course, and is found in many variations in early history. The early Catholic parishes were referred to as Upper Zachiah and Lower Zachiah; St. Mary's (in Bryantown) stems from Zekiah Chapel/Lower Zachiah which had been established on Boarman's Manor on Benedict Hundred, and St. Peter's in Waldorf came from Upper Zachiah. Carol (Gehrs) Mitchell, 134 Schnauzer Lane, Beaver Falls, PA 15010 <carolmit@usaor.net> 724-847-4473 [using The Master Genealogist 3.5, WP8, Eudora]