Editing Port Tobacco Village, Maryland (section)

===Decline===
Port Tobacco started declining as erosion from excessive agricultural use and poor soil conservation caused significant [[siltation]] at the head of the [[Port Tobacco River]], decreasing its navigability and ultimately cutting off the town from access to [[Chesapeake Bay]] and the Atlantic Ocean. Larger merchant vessels were unable to use the former seaport; as a result, commercial activity at the port had dwindled by the time of the Civil War.<ref name="ABeisaw">{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/176111|first=April M.|last=Beisaw|title=Once Was Not Enough: Founding and Finding Port Tobacco, Charles County|access-date=July 19, 2014|journal=Maryland Archeology |volume=43 | issue = 2  |date=September 2007 |pages=1–6 |publisher=Academia}}</ref>

The decline was exacerbated by the completion in 1873 of a nearby [[Baltimore and Potomac Railroad]] line to Pope's Creek which bypassed Port Tobacco and ran further south to another port directly on the Potomac River.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.charlescountymd.gov/locations/la-plata-train-station|title=LaPlata Train Station |publisher=Charles County Government |access-date=July 17, 2014 }}</ref> A small portion of the town's square incorporated in 1888 as Port Tobacco Village,<ref name="county"/><ref name="mdmanual" /> a move that may have signaled an effort by the community to reverse its decline, but new communities eventually sprang up along the railway and prospered, including the town of [[La Plata, Maryland|La Plata]] which succeeded Port Tobacco as the county seat in 1895.