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Talbot County Maryland *ONLINE ONLY*

July 2024

By Victor Block

Like all visitors to Talbot County, Maryland, I was immersed in chapters of our nation’s past.

Native Americans there were followed by Captain John Smith, who surveyed the region in 1608. The first English settlers arrived in the 1630s and established tobacco plantations.

Each town has a museum which relates parts of this historical tale. The Tilghman Watermen's Museum celebrates the people who earn their livelihood on rivers and bays. It brings their story to life with videos, boat models and tools of the trade.

The centerpiece of the Oxford Museum is a lighthouse lens named for Augustin-Jean Fresnel, a French engineer who in the 1820s devised a light that produces a very strong beam. Other exhibits are devoted to oysters, ducks and watermen.

This region is home to the oldest continuing free Black community in the United States, and their story also is told. The Water's Edge Museum in Oxford portrays the lives of Black farmers, watermen, sail makers and others who played important roles in the area’s commerce and culture.

The crown jewel is the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, an 18-acre campus that has evolved from a humble beginning into a world-class display. It contains a variety of historic structures, more than 100 boats and boat models, decoys and a lighthouse which was moved.

Each town also has its own memories to share, and together they weave a fascinating account.

Easton (population about 17,000) is deemed the "big city" of Talbot County. The Third Haven Meeting House traces its roots back to about 1684. Among notable Quakers who have worshiped there was William Penn.

St. Michaels dates back to the mid-1600s, when it was a trading post for trappers and tobacco farmers, and later a ship building center. During the British navy's bombardment in the Battle of 1812 when, several houses were struck by cannon balls, the townspeople escaped serious damage by turning off house lights and hanging lanterns in nearby trees, at which the Brits aimed their fire. That trick resulted in St. Michaels becoming known as "the town that fooled the British."

When I crossed the short drawbridge which connects the mainland with the tiny waterman’s village of Tilghman Island (pronounced Till-man), I was retracing the route of spans that have existed at that site since the late 1600s. I was greeted by a 10-by 40-foot mural on the side of a building named Pride.

That painting depicts a waterman in his boat, other vessels docked nearby and displays of the seafood for which Talbot County is famous. A plaque pays tribute to the people “who have been working the Chesapeake Bay waters since the 1800s,” demonstrating endurance, perseverance and respect for the natural world.

I chose Oxford as home base for a variety of reasons, including its serene setting. Officially established in 1683, although the town had existed earlier, this is a charming hamlet of brick sidewalks which lead past white picket fences enclosing elegant historic homes.

In colonial days it developed as a booming port, and later an active boat building business thrived there. Much later, the author James Michener chose it as the place where he wrote his novel Chesapeake.

Oxford also is notable for two other reasons. One is the Robert Morris Inn, built in 1710 as a home and since 1800 operating as a venerable hotel. Prominent dignitaries who have slept there include George Washington and Robert Morris. He was a British-born merchant who moved to Colonial America, personally helped to finance the Revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence. The original wood paneling and oak timbers were hand-made by ship carpenters, and bricks in the fireplaces were brought from England as ballast in vessels.

The village also is home base for the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry, the oldest privately owned ferry boat in the country. It began transporting passengers in 1683, and now also carries vehicles, bicycles and motorcycles across the Tred Avon River.

Talbot County has than 600 miles of shoreline, and I was never far from rivers and the Chesapeake Bay which are dotted by marinas, and plied by both working and pleasure boats. This provides a perfect backdrop for sightings of eagles, ospreys and other resident and migrating birds; a long list of fish species, and occasional encounters with bull sharks, cownose rays and bottlenose dolphin.

The county’s coastline is sprinkled with historic hotels, boutique inns and charming B&Bs. When it comes to dining, three denizens of local waters -- crabs, rockfish and oysters – are known as the “holy trinity.” They are augmented by locally grown vegetables and fruit, which are available spring to fall at roadside farmers markets.

For more information log onto tourtalbot.org.