Maryland

Centuries later, U.Md. recreating peace coins for state’s tribal descendants – WTOP News

Published

1 year ago

November 22, 2024

Centuries later, U.Md. recreating peace coins for state’s tribal descendants – WTOP News

Engineering students at the University of Maryland have been using a 3D printer to recreate peace coins given out by British colonists settling in Maryland.

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Centuries later, UMD recreating peace coins for tribal descendants in Maryland

While rummaging through the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore, Mario Harley, a citizen and historian of the Piscataway tribe, found peace coins given out by British colonists settling in the state. These were pieces of history that had been forgotten — one coin dating back to 1652.

They were given to tribal leaders as symbols of peace treaties, typically agreements about land and trade. Over time, though, they would repeatedly be broken if the tribes had any actual claim to the land involved.

This week, engineering students at the University of Maryland have been using a 3D printer to recreate those coins. The process takes 10-12 hours inside the printer, and a few more hours to put on finishing touches.

“We have a powder-based 3D metal printer,” said Rick Blanton, the director of technical operations for the Clark School of Engineering at the university. “What this is able to do is take layers of powdered metal and then use a laser to heat that powder up until it melts together in a sintering process.”

It’s repeated hundreds to thousands of times, based on a 3D scan done by an Owings Mills-based company called Direct Dimensions. The technology that private company used can read details and narrow down precision to 50 micron.

To put that in context, a human hair has a diameter of 75 micron. The technology is so precise, it’s able to capture the imprecision that comes with handmade coins from centuries ago.

“One of the nice things about the technology is that you’re able to catch some of the original surface textures that were part of the original coins,” Blanton said.

From what Harley has seen so far, the level of detail found in the new coins is even greater than what was washed away by centuries of time.

“Especially the portrait of Anne Arundel, which is on the reverse side of the 1652 Calvert medal,” Harley said. “The details in her hair and the in the air, clothing, her facial expressions, was greater than what it was on the historic metal.”

The three coins being reproduced are the Calver Peace Medal, which was given to the Susquehannock tribe in 1652 in exchange for rights to Piscataway lands along the Chesapeake Bay — a deal that would be sort of like if New Jersey just decided to sell the state of Delaware to Maryland.

“This was the first peace medal given to indigenous America by the British,” Harley said.

Another medal was given to the Piscataway by the Calverts in 1676 as a token of good faith. The last one has six arrows, which has historians thinking it was made in the 1740s and represented the Iroquois Confederacy of Six Nations.

The three medals are being recreated to be bigger than the originals, so living members of the tribes can receive them and carry them.

The work is being done by engineering students such as Robert Alban. For him, it’s about learning skills that will help him when he graduates.

“It poses an interesting challenge to me as an operator and as a manager of this machine, of ‘How do you make that work?’ Because there are a lot of companies, like Lockheed Martin, a lot of other aerospace contractors that use these same machines,” Alban said. “They just rip parts from them and use them in whatever build they’re doing at the time. So it’s really fun to get challenging pieces like this that I know will definitely help me in my future.”

Blanton said the real world impact of this classroom learning comes with higher stakes than a typical classroom project, with a higher level of expectation and stricter definition of success.

“It allows for the living members of the tribe today to have representative artifacts that are absolutely critical to their culture,” he said. “Having that history available for them to, you know, see, touch and feel is a critical component to making that connection with their past.”

Harley is hoping to get the recreated coins next week.

“I can only imagine putting myself in the place of my ancestors,” he said. “When they’re coming back with these medals in their hand, they’re feeling quite proud that they maybe, maybe have established a relationship that could be long lasting, that allowed them to continue to live the lifestyle the creator intended them to live. And then realizing over time that that wasn’t the case.”

He was extremely thankful to the university, as well as Direct Dimension, for collaborating to make this possible.

“Having something on display in the museum is good, but having the people in the community, in the DMV region be aware of it, is even better,” he said. “Having a capability at College Park to reproduce items is good. Having something of a historical nature that we can share with the students on campus as well as around the region, is better.”

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Maryland

Winds ease for a seasonable weekend in Maryland

Published

48 minutes ago

December 20, 2025

Press Room

Winds ease for a seasonable weekend in Maryland

Happy Saturday, Maryland!

Today is the final day of fall and we’ll have more seasonable conditions and quieter weather this weekend.

Calmer weekend

Maryland’s peak wind gusts reached over 50 mph on Friday. As high pressure remains in control today (although it is moving offshore), we’ll have a couple of quieter days ahead the weekend.

Expect temperatures in the upper 30s to low 40s on Saturday with much calmer winds. Sunshine mixes with clouds overhead, but we stay dry.

Tonight, we could have a few more clouds as a cold front approaches. Temperatures cool into the 20s and 30s again tonight.

Ravens-Patriots forecast

Winds pick up slightly again on Sunday, as gusts could surpass 20 mph during the day. Temperatures will be a few degrees warmer, reaching the upper 40s in some neighborhoods.

It’ll be cool if you’re heading to the Ravens game on Sunday night. Kickoff temperatures will be in the low 30s and drop into the 20s through game time.

It will be dry with mainly clear skies during the game.

Holiday travel

We are in the final countdown ahead of the Christmas holiday next week. Overall, it looks like weather will cooperate with your travel plans here in Maryland.

Outside of a low risk for a shower or two with the passing cold front tomorrow, it’s dry over the next couple of days.

Our next chance of rain will come Tuesday as a pair of fronts will pass through. A few snowflakes could mix with showers Monday night into Tuesday. Accumulations are not expected at this point.

Then, the First Alert Weather team will watch another chance for a few showers Wednesday into Thursday. Santa may need the windshield wipers as he moves through on Christmas Eve. He’ll check in with the WJZ First Alert Weather team for updated timing on the late-week chance of showers, just as you should!

Temperatures later in the week will also be warming. Wednesday will be in the mid to upper 40s with Thursday and Friday warming into the 50s. Cooler air returns for the final weekend of 2025.

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Maryland

Maryland dentist to serve 10 years for pill-splitting scheme with assistant

Published

13 hours ago

December 20, 2025

Press Room

Maryland dentist to serve 10 years for pill-splitting scheme with assistant

A Baltimore County dentist was sentenced to 10 years in prison after illegally distributing an opioid to one of his former employees over the course of three years.

According to the Office of Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (OAG), Dr. Andrew T. Fried, DMD, a licensed dentist who owned a solo practice dental office in Nottingham, Maryland, pleaded guilty to the following charges in November:

one count of distributing narcotics
and one count of prescribing controlled dangerous substances outside the regular course of duties of a dentist and not within the standards of his profession related to controlled dangerous substances.

Dr. Fried prescribed Oxycodone without a legitimate reason to a former employee who worked as an assistant at Perry Hall Family Dental from April 2022 to May 2025.

Dr. Fried admitted that he and the former assistant would split the pills between themselves and that he purchased them weekly from his assistant, who got them from close family members, according to a press release from the OAG.

On Friday, AG Brown announced the charges, stating, “Every Marylander who sits in a dental chair should trust that they’re receiving competent, professional care…This sentence protects Dr. Fried’s patients from further unsafe treatment and eliminates a source of opioids in our communities.”

Baltimore opioid crisis

Oxycodone is a strong prescription painkiller that is classified as a Schedule II-Controlled Substance due to its risk of addiction, illness, and, in some cases, death.

The drug is meant to be distributed by healthcare professionals to treat moderate to severe pain when other pain medicines aren’t sufficient; however, the pills can, at times, be found on the street.

In 2019, police arrested a man after discovering 38 pills of suspected Oxycodone during a traffic stop in Glen Burnie.

In 2018, a licensed pharmacist pleaded guilty to distributing oxycodone in exchange for sexual favors.

Baltimore’s ongoing opioid epidemic is a priority for city leaders.

In October, city leaders met to discuss ways to address Baltimore’s open-air drug market after three mass overdose incidents had taken place in the Penn North neighborhood over a span of four months.

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No. 7 Maryland routs winless Central Connecticut State 98-30 despite injury issues

Published

1 day ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

No. 7 Maryland routs winless Central Connecticut State 98-30 despite injury issues

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Yarden Garzon scored 12 of her 25 points in the first quarter, and No. 7 Maryland routed Central Connecticut State 98-30 on Friday.

To the delight of the screaming kids in attendance for the team’s annual Field Trip Day game, Terrapins coach Brenda Frese wore a jersey with the number 67 on it before tip-off. Then Maryland nearly won by that margin.

The blowout was no surprise. Maryland entered the game as one of 12 unbeaten teams left in Division I, and Central Connecticut State was one of 10 without a victory. The Terps (13-0) scored the game’s first 10 points and led 39-14 after one quarter.

Garzon made four 3-pointers in the first period.

Oluchi Okananwa had 22 points and Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu, who appeared to hobble on her right leg before leaving the game in the fourth quarter, had 10 points and nine rebounds. Ozzy-Momodu said after the game she’s OK.

Lucia Noin led Central Connecticut State (0-11) with 12 points.

Maryland guard Saylor Poffenbarger has been dealing with an ankle injury, and she sat out Friday as a planned rest day before the team returns to conference play. The Terrapins have lost Lea Bartelme, Ava McKennie and Kaylene Smikle to season-ending knee injuries, and Bri McDaniel, who tore her ACL 11 months ago, now plans to redshirt this season.

After the Terps took a 64-18 lead, they attempted five straight 3-pointers before Garzon finally made one to gave Maryland exactly 67 points. That drew an excited response from the crowd, as expected.

Central Connecticut State: Hosts Long Island University on Jan. 2.

Maryland: Hosts Wisconsin on Dec. 29.

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