Calvert County
Maryland

First colonized as part of Charles County (much larger than the present-day Charles County) circa 1650, it was renamed Patuxent County in 1654 by an Order in Council. In 1658, the county was renamed Calvert County. It is one of the older counties in Maryland, after St. Mary’s, Kent County and Anne Arundel counties.

Once made up primarily of farms and tobacco fields, the county has become a fast-growing exurban neighbor of Washington. Many home prices have nearly quadrupled in the past decade, with many four-bedroom homes in the northern half of the county averaging over $1,000,000. The popular weekend resort towns of Solomons, Chesapeake Beach, and North Beach are notable. Calvert County has a long history of using slave labor in said farms and fields.

According to the local “Trail of Souls” project, at its height prior to the Civil War, there were over 10,000 enslaved people. According to the Maryland Archives Project, “By 1860, the approximately 46,000 slaves in the counties of southern Maryland, outnumbered those found in all other regions of the state combined. However, the southern counties had a relatively small free black population.”

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 88,737 people residing in the county. The median income for a household in the county was $90,838 and the median income for a family was $102,638.

Calvert County is included in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 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.