The Location of the City is Chosen Leonard Calvert met with the tayac, or leader of the Piscataway nation, and was told about a small village on the St. Mary's River that was being abandoned by the Yaocomaco. He and the other settlers began building a small town on that site that he named St. Mary's City. St. Mary's City would become the first capital of the English colony of Maryland. Here is a map of the colony of Maryland in 1666. Look carefully to see if you can find where they chose to build St. Mary's City. Map by George Alsop, from A Character of the Province of Maryland, Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1880 [1666,], Fund-Publication, No. 15, p. 442, from Maryland Archives Document Collection