Friendship, MD

Friendship is an Anne Arundel County census-designated place at the southern tip of the county, near Herring Bay and the roads toward the Patuxent River. The 2020 census counted 384 residents. A county history places the village’s founding in 1804, when Isaac Simmons settled along the post road between Annapolis and St. Leonard’s Town. That road network still shows up today in Maryland Route 2, Friendship Road, and the routes leading toward Fairhaven and the bay.

Friendship’s historical footprint is unusually deep for a CDP of its size. Holly Hill, surveyed in 1663 and built in stages between 1665 and 1733, sits on Friendship Road and preserves a colonial Chesapeake story tied to the Harrison family and Quaker settlement. The old village also grew around churches and local shops, while today most schools, county services, shopping, and larger errands connect through southern Anne Arundel and nearby Calvert County. Friendship is a small crossroads with a long memory: the same route that once carried stage traffic now carries commuters, farm errands, and county traffic past one of Maryland’s oldest surviving homes.