Calvert County, Maryland

Calvert County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 92,783. Its county seat is Prince Frederick. The county's name is derived from the family name of the Barons of Baltimore, the proprietors of the English Colony of Maryland. Calvert County is included in the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria metropolitan statistical area. It occupies the Calvert Peninsula, which is bordered on the east by Chesapeake Bay and on the west by the Patuxent River. The county has one of the highest median household incomes in the United States. It is one of the older counties in Maryland, after St. Mary's, Kent, and Anne Arundel Counties. The county is part of the Southern Maryland region of the state.

In 1608, Captain John Smith was the first European to sail past what is now Calvert County while exploring the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. On his map, he accurately represented the Patuxent River, as well as several Native-American villages. The area was described as wooded and had been occupied by the Patuxent people, who were overall peaceful to the early Europeans. Their diet was composed of fish from the river and corn cultivated in man-made clearings with a supplement of game from the forests. These clearings were very desirable, and conflict occurred when the settlers attempted to seize these areas from the Native Americans. Leonard Calvert, the first governor of Maryland, organized troops of armed men in 1639 to protect the settlers.

The first written mention of European settlers on the northern shore of the Patuxent River is found in the records of the Maryland Assembly in 1642. A Henry Bishop "stood up in the Assembly and exhibited himself as a Burgess of St. Leonard's and pleaded that it be acknowledged as a Hundred" near St. Leonard's Creek. This shows that European settlement along the river and its tributaries had been taking place for several years already.

By 1646, the colonists had spread all along the Patuxent River and along the bay side of Calvert County. Most of the transportation of goods and people took place on the water, as the land was occupied by dense forests. Large creeks were navigated by sailing boats, and plantations used their wharves to ship goods. Ferry services were set up to cross the river and the bay, with rates fixed by law.

The county was originally named Charles County (much larger and unrelated to the present-day Charles County) in 1650 when Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore established it with Robert Brooke as its "Commander". It was named after Charles I of England. At the time, the new county included the current area of Calvert County, as well as the southern and western shores of the Patuxent River up to its headwaters. The county seat was called Calverton (sometimes called Battle Town) and was located on the north shore at the mouth of Battle Creek until 1725. In 1658, the county was renamed Calvert County. It also included all of Prince George's County and parts of Montgomery County.

Puritans coming from Virginia had settled in Anne Arundel County and overflowed into Calvert County. All new settlers in Maryland were required to take an oath of allegiance to Lord Baltimore per the "Conditions of Plantation". This was a major point of tension between the Puritan settlers and Lord Baltimore. The civil war was ongoing in Britain, where the Puritans had gained control. Oliver Cromwell dismissed Parliament there and assumed the role of Lord Protector. In 1652, he sent a force of 750 men to subdue the plantations of the Chesapeake Bay under the new government. Virginia and Maryland surrendered to the Puritans and Robert Brooke cooperated with the Puritans.

On July 3, 1654, Lord Baltimore abolished Charles County and removed all authority from Brooke. He re-established the county as Calvert County with the same territory, but the Puritan Assembly was in power and changed the name to Patuxent County on October 20, 1654, after the Patuxent River and to remove any connection with the Calvert family. The county kept this name under the Puritan regime until 1658, when the name of Calvert County was restored.

According to the local "Trail of Souls Project", in 1860, 4,609 enslaved people and 1,841 free people of color lived there, with a total county population around 10,000 people.