Talbot History is Our 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.

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.

The Talbot Historical Society is presenting a Native American Heritage & Artifact Day, held on February 21, 2026 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., offering families and individuals a rare opportunity to experience centuries-old Native American artifacts along with the living history of the Pocomoke Indian Nation through demonstrations, presentations, and cultural displays.

Born on Christmas Day 1744 on his father’s plantation at “Fausley,” just two miles from what is today Easton in Talbot County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Tench Tilghman was the eldest of ten children of James and Anne (Francis) Tilghman.

Solomon Barrott (1763–1851) enlisted in the Revolutionary War at age sixteen and served as a drummer in the Maryland Line, fighting in major battles of the Southern Campaign through the surrender at Yorktown. Remembered as “The Little Drummer Boy” and the last surviving member of the Maryland Line, he later returned to Easton, where he lived as a respected citizen and is buried at Spring Hill Cemetery.