Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Bryantown is an unincorporated community in Charles County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Maryland Route 5. Bryantown stands on land known as Boarman's Manor, a 4,000 acre manor granted to Major William Boarman in 1674. . Bryantown is associated with the flight in 1865 of President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, and its St. Mary's Church is the burial place of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who lived 5 miles to the north, and who in November 1864 had first met Booth at the church (see article on Mudd).