As part of America’s 250th anniversary, St. Luke's United Methodist Church will host screenings of Bear Me Into Freedom: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for America’s Promise from July 1–5, 2026. The film explores the life, legacy, and enduring impact of Frederick Douglass, whose years enslaved in St. Michaels helped shape one of the nation’s most influential voices for freedom, equality, and justice.

St. Michaels will celebrate America’s 250th anniversary with a multi-week community celebration featuring patriotic events, historical programming, live music, waterfront festivities, and family-friendly activities from Memorial Day through July 5. Centered around Flag Day weekend, the initiative brings together local organizations, businesses, and residents to honor the nation’s semiquincentennial through community pride and shared history.

Celebrations for Talbot250 are already underway across the county as residents prepare to honor the land they love for the United States’ 250th birthday.

Suzanne Stoltenberg, a member of Working Artists Forum, was inspired by her love for Talbot County to start a paper quilt of memories. Stoltenberg has been working since March to collect memories — written down on paper shapes — from residents around the county.

In celebration of America 250, visitors taking the TALBOT COUNTY TOUR of the MARYLAND HOUSE & GARDEN PILGRIMAGE will experience an array of stellar homes, gardens and nationally significant historic sites on Saturday, May 9 from 10 am to 5 pm, rain or shine.

Upcoming Exhibit: Oxford was ‘Carried on the Tide’ of the Revolution. ‘The Rise and Fall of Colonial Oxford’ is the story that the Oxford Museum is preparing. This year, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of the Revolution. Fortunes rose like the tides, and for some, like the tides, fortunes fell.

Suzanne Stoltenberg has been hauling this project all over Talbot County. There are paper triangles, poster board signs, prompts, pens, glue, tape, and the fabric backing that will eventually hold it all together. There is also Stoltenberg, sitting behind a table, convincing people they really do have something worth writing down.

Talbot County eighth graders poured out of school buses and onto the grounds of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum to explore the meaning of freedom.

The exhibit, “Bear Me Into Freedom: The Talbot County of Frederick Douglass,” opened March 5. The exhibition traces Douglass’ life from his birth and early years as an enslaved person in Talbot County, through his escape to freedom, and into his later returns to the region as a celebrated free man.

WBOC took to the skies and collected some aerial footage of General Perry Benson’s Grave in Talbot County.