Legend of the Blue Dog - A Little History from Our Part of the World.

By most accounts and local lore, the spirit of a large blue dog protects his murdered master's treasure, buried somewhere on Rose Hill Road outside Port Tobacco. According to Rose Hill Road resident Charles Stuart, whose property contains the fabled rock that Blue Dog and his master were killed on, the first written account of the Blue Dog legend dates back to 1897, when his home's former owner, Olivia Floyd who was a former agent for the Confederacy during the Civil War, told the Maryland Independent she had seen the ghost of the Blue Dog.

Although he hasn't seen the ghost of Blue Dog on February 8 in the 20 years he has lived on Rose Hill Road, Stuart, "doesn't doubt" the accounts of that date following the Revolutionary War, when Charles Thomas Sims, a soldier, and his dog were killed on Rose Hill Road while returning from a Port Tobacco Tavern.

Stuart said that Henry Hanos of Port Tobacco killed Sims and his dog for his gold and a deed to an estate. Hanos then buried the gold and deed under a holly tree along Rose Hill Road. When Hanos returned to recover the treasure, he was scared away by the ghost of Blue Dog and then fell ill, before suddenly dying. To this day, Blue Dog continues to watch over his slain master's treasure.


Charles Stuart goes to our church, and the holly tree in the story is on the way to church. As is the Blue Dog Saloon which, fortunately, I have never been in. I spend my free time in Hooters and Apehangers