Talbot County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,526. Its county seat is Easton. The county was named for Lady Grace Talbot, the wife of Sir Robert Talbot, an Anglo-Irish statesman, and the sister of Lord Baltimore.Dickerson J. Preston Talbot County: A History. Centreville, Maryland, 1983. page 26
Talbot County comprises the Easton, MD Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Washington–Baltimore–Arlington, DC–MD–VA–WV–PA Combined Statistical Area.
Talbot County is bordered by Queen Anne's County to the north, Caroline County to the east, Dorchester County to the south, and the Chesapeake Bay to the west.
History
17th century The founding date of Talbot County is not known. It existed by February 12, 1661, when a writ was issued to its sheriff. It was initially divided into nine hundreds and three parishes: St. Paul's, St. Peter's and St. Michael's.Percy G. Skirven, The First Parishes of the Province of Maryland (Baltimore: the Norman, Remington Company, 1923) p. 146.
In 1667, the first Meeting of Commissions was held in a home on the Skipton Creek near the town of York. The town of York was vacated once the courthouse was planned to be built on Armstrongs Old Field in 1709 near Pitts' Bridge. The new courthouse designated because York was too far north in the county once Queen Anne's County received their charter and was lopped off of Talbot County.Cynthia Beatty Ludlow, "Historic Easton", 1976, page 16 Pitts' Bridge was just north of the Quaker Meeting House, but most importantly, it faced the Indian trail (Washington Street – Easton).
18th century Founding Father John Dickinson was born in Trappe in 1732.
Lt. Col. Tench Tilghman, Gen. George Washington's aide-de-camp, was born on Fausley in Talbot County on December 25, 1744. He died on April 18, 1786, and is buried in Oxford, Maryland.Norman Harrington "Easton Alboum". Easton, Maryland 1986. page 30
After the American Revolutionary War in 1786, Act to Assemble in Annapolis appointed John Needles to survey and "to erect a town in Talbot County to be called Talbottown"—laying out a town around then existing court house with 118 number parcels of land and designated streets, alleys and lanes. Talbottown was to be known as the county seat of Easton. Another act was passed in 1789 to build a larger courthouse on the site of the old one. This court house was completed in 1794 and today parts of it still stand today inside of the present court house.
19th century The abolitionist Frederick Douglass was born into slavery near Tuckahoe Creek around 1817 or 1818.
In 1869, one of the only Mammoths found in Maryland was discovered in the County.
By the mid-1880s, two all-black settlements, Unionville and Copperville, had been established along the Miles River neck.
20th century The first established hospital on the Eastern Shore was near McDaniel at Dr. Absolom Thompson farm, the old Mary's Delight Farm.The Easton Star Democrat, December 30, 1949
In 1962, a CIA safehouse along St. Michaels Road housed Francis Gary Powers when the Soviets released him after he was shot down over the Soviet Union.[ ] TO TALBOTS 'SAFE' HOUSE' The house was sold by the government in 1983 and 1989 and is now private property.
The county has a number of properties on the National Register of Historic Places.
Great Seal symbology The Great Seal of Talbot County was adopted on July 26, 1966. The design reflects the Talbot coat of arms, chosen due to the county's namesake, Grace Talbot, daughter of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. The seal features a rampant lion gules on a silver shield. Its background is purpure, a color assigned to Talbot County in 1694 by Maryland's royal governor, Sir Francis Nicholson. It bears the inscription, "The Great Seal of Talbot County Maryland" along the edge. Below the lion is the Latin motto, Tempus Praeteritum Et Futurum, meaning "Times, Past and Future."
Historical sites and monuments Third Haven Meeting House The Third Haven Meeting House of Society of Friends was built in 1682 by Quakers. After Charles I was executed in England in 1649, then Virginia governor Berkley, who sympathized with the Royalists, drove Quakers out of Virginia for their religious beliefs. Lord Baltimore invited the refugees to Maryland Province to settle, and passed the Toleration Act.The Easton Star Democrat, May 21, 1948 John Edmondson gave the Quakers land on which to settle near the Tred Avon River in what later became Easton, Maryland. The Meeting House sits on high ground surrounded by 3 wooded acres and is positioned along the Indian Trail (today known as Washington Street). George Fox, father of the Quaker movement visited several times. Upon his death, Third Haven Meeting House received his personal library and collection. The Third Haven Meeting House may be the oldest framed building for religious meeting in The United States. According to tradition, Lord Baltimore attended a sermon given there by William Penn.Dickerson, Preston, Talbot County: A History, Centreville, Maryland 1983. page 32
In 1794, the rafters were extended on one side of the ridgepole. While this extension made more room inside the meeting house, it also made the building look lopsided. In 1879, a new Third Haven Meeting House was constructed out of brick, and still remains in use today. The ground floor now contains meeting rooms, and Sunday School is held on the second floor.
St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, which still holds weekly masses, is recognized as the oldest Roman Catholic Church on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Father Joseph Mosely, a Jesuit, established the church in 1765 on a farm north of Easton in Cordova. St. Joseph Church was the second Catholic Church in Talbot County; a chapel at Doncaster was the first.
The church had additions built in 1845 and in 1903 (the cloverleaf apse at the left where the altar is now). Father Mosley and other priests are buried under the church floor.
St. Joseph Church hosts an annual jousting tournament on the first Wednesday of August. The event has been held at St. Joseph for the past 142 years. The only time the event was canceled was in 1918, due to many of the riders' involvement in World War I.
Longwoods School House Longwoods School House or The Little Red School House is located on Longwoods Road (Route 662) just north of Easton. Longwoods School House is one of the few remaining one-room schoolhouses on the Eastern Shore. The school opened in 1865 with an average class size of about 30, and held its last class in 1967. It once had two outhouses: one for the boys and one for the girls, separated by a fence. Indoor plumbing was introduced in 1957 and electricity in 1936.
The Talbot Historical Society restored the schoolhouse to it original form, removing the electrical lights and the modern plumbing and added the outhouse to the back of the building.
Poplar Island
Popeley Island (later Poplar Island) was one of Talbot County's first islands that was given a name and location on a map. Popeley Island was given its name by Captain William Claibourne after Lt. Richard Popeley. Popeley Island was the first land to be settled in 1632 by Captain William Claibourne. The first fields were planted in Talbot County on Popeley Island in 1634, and in 1635 Claibourne granted the whole island to his cousin Richard Thompson. During the summer of 1637, while Thompson was off the island on an expedition, Native Americans, the Nanticoke tribe, massacred Thompson's whole family and workers. Through the 1700s the name changed spelling from Popeleys to Poples to Poplar. Thompson went back to Virginia and never came back to his island. In 1654 Thomas Hawkins acquired Poplar Island and sold half to Seth Foster, Tilghman Island’s founding father. Poplar Island is only accessible by boat today and is currently being rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers.
White Marsh Church In 1691, King William and Queen Mary appointed Sir Lionel Copely as the first royal governor and told him that the colonists needed to become more religious. The Establishment Act of 1692 divided Talbot County into three parishes to serve the Church of England, and Old White Marsh was one of them. The location of the church was to be in Hambleton, with the decision based upon the trade routine of the time. It was between the two ports in Oxford and Dover (small town on the Choptank near where Dover Bridge today sits). The original church is believed to have been built between 1662 and 1665; however, the first mention of the church is in 1690, although the Talbot County Court House has a record of repair made to the road to Old White Marsh Church in 1687.
In 1751, repairs were made to the church, and it was doubled in size due to the fact the membership was so large. Reverend Thomas Bacon was the cause of the large membership. Reverend Bacon was the writer of the Bacon's Laws. Membership decreased when Reverend Bacon left to assume leadership of Maryland's largest parish (at that time), All Saints Church in Frederick, Maryland, and services alternated between White Marsh and the new Christ Church in the growing county seat of Easton. Services finally ended at White Marsh, and the church was abandoned after it burned in brush fire during a cleanup operation in 1897.Arthur Pierre Middleton, Tercentenary Essays Commemorating Anglican Maryland 1692-1792 (Virginia Beach, The Donning Company 1992) p. 73 A few of the original items used at the church rest at the St. Paul's Church in Trappe: White Marsh's Bible, communion items and the old wooden alms box. The remaining brick wall can still be seen from U.S. Route 50 between Trappe and Easton.
The first rector, Reverend Daniel Maynadier, and his wife are buried in the floor of the church. Robert Morris Sr., merchant and father of founding father Robert Morris, is buried just outside the church to the left. Plaques show the graves of all three individuals.
Talbot Boys monument
From 1916 to 2022, a statue honoring the Talbot County men who fought in the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War stood in front of the Talbot County Courthouse. The statue depicted a young boy holding and wrapped in a Confederate flag, and bears the inscription: "To the Talbot Boys · 1861–1865 · C.S.A.". Talbot County also had over 300 Union soldiers in the war, but there has never been a monument to them.
Like other Confederate monuments installed during the Jim Crow era, the monument drew increased opposition in the 21st century by those opposed to honoring the Confederacy and its defense of slavery. In 2015, the local N.A.A.C.P. chapter proposed removing the statue, but the County Council unanimously voted to keep it in place. In June 2020, a lengthy series of letters to the editor of The Talbot Spy, a local newspaper, was published, all arguing for the removal of the statue. In August 2020, after the George Floyd protests led to a new wave of removals of Confederate monuments, the County Council voted down 3:2 a resolution to remove the statue, triggering loud public protests.
By 2021, the statue was the only remaining Confederate statue on public grounds in Maryland. In May 2021, the ACLU sued the county in federal court to demand its removal. In September 2021, the County Council voted 3:2 to remove the statue. It was removed on March 14, 2022, and relocated to the Cross Keys battlefield in Harrisonburg, Virginia, under the control of the nonprofit Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.
Frederick Douglass monument Near the Talbot Boys monument, a statue of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, born into slavery near Tuckahoe Creek, stands in front of the courthouse. Douglass had been held in jail at the rear of the courthouse after his aborted attempt to escape slavery on April 2, 1836.