06/12/2026
(RT 235) Three Notch Road, 1898
Today, many families travel Three Notch Road on their way to Scotland, Maryland and The Hideaway in Hays Beach. It is a commercial thoroughfare used instead of Rt 5 with shopping centers, gas stations, movie theaters, restaurants, and thousands of cars all lining a route that began as one of Maryland's earliest colonial roads.
The road, established by 1692, connected Point Lookout and northern St. Mary's County along the drainage divide between the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.
The Patuxent Main Road later became known as the Three Notch Road based on a 1704 law that stated "Three Notches of Equall distance at the Entrance into the same." Those markings gave this road its name: Three Notch Road. The whereabouts of the ferry to which this road led are unknown.
This photograph from 1898 shows how different it once looked. A narrow dirt road winding through the woods hardly resembles today's Route 235. Yet for generations, this was the main route connecting communities throughout St. Mary's County.
The next time you're driving on Three Notch Road, remember that you're traveling a road whose name dates back more than 300 years, to a time when directions were carved into trees instead of road signs.
