Stagg Hall Invitation

Saturday afternoon I spoke to the Maryland Genealogical Society at their annual luncheon meeting in Catonsville. Before things got rolling, an old friend Betty Linton De Keyser, whose roots in Charles County run deep, gave me a photocopy of an invitation that she owns. I've reproduced it below.

On the back is inscribed the name Mrs. E. Nalley.

I've often wondered why one of Port Tobacco's surviving 18th-century buildings, Stagg Hall, is so named. What was Stag Hall (as spelled on the card)? A fraternal organization like the Masons? Or the Elks, an image of which appears on the card? Did they meet at Stagg Hall, the house now occupied by Mrs. Dorothy Barbour?

Perhaps the answers to some of these questions can be found in period newspapers.

Jim