Talbot County, Maryland: 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.
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. Pitts' Bridge was just north of the Quaker Meeting House, but most importantly, it faced the Indian trail (Washington Street – Easton).
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.
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.
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.
The first established hospital on the Eastern Shore was near McDaniel at Dr. Absolom Thompson farm, the old Mary's Delight Farm.
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. 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.
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."