St. Mary's County, MD
History
The settlement of Lord Baltimore's Maryland began with the arrival of passengers from England at St. Clement's Island in the Potomac River in what is now southwestern St. Mary's County on March 25, 1634 (the anniversary of this landing being annually celebrated as Maryland Day). The passengers arrived in two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, which had set sail from the Isle of Wight on November 22, 1633.In 1637 St. Mary's County was the first county established in Maryland.
Lord Baltimore, with the Maryland General Assembly, passed the Maryland Toleration Act in 1649, which provided religious freedom for any Christian sect, and which was the first law of its kind in the New World.
St. Mary's County is where Francis Scott Key, the author of a poem which became The Star Spangled Banner, grew up.
Modern Day Adjacent Counties
St. Mary's County is bordered by Calvert County in the northeast andCharles County on the northwest. It is in southern Maryland with its eastern boundary the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River its southern boundary.