Maryland Loveday Legacy

Although the Loveday lines in Maryland have dwindled since the days of the Revolutionary War, their name is remembered in local landmarks.

Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, was the first Proprietary of the Province of Maryland. He named Talbot County, established in 1661 along the Eastern Shore, for his sister Grace Talbot, wife of Sir Robert Talbot. Initially, Talbot County stretched to include all territory between the head waters of the Choptank and Chester Rivers and eastward to the Delaware border. Later, portions of Talbot were divided among the counties of Queen Anne’s, Caroline, and Kent. In 1706, the boundaries of Talbot County were clearly defined to include Sharps Island, Choptank Island, Poplar Island, and Bruffs Island, as well as all the land north of the Great Choptank River up to the Tuckahoe Bridge and over to Sweatman’s Mill, then down the south side of the Wye River to the bay.

When colonists came to the Eastern Shore area of Maryland, they divided the settlement into “hundreds,” like those established by the Angles and Saxons a thousand years earlier when they first arrived in old England. The old English custom divided the lands among ten families, estimating that each family and its servants numbered ten people, totaling a hundred people in each area. Although the Maryland divisions of hundreds were originally just geographic divisions, they were later used as election districts. The Lovedays owned land in the Tuckahoe Hundred, as well as others.

Their original holdings dated back to the 1600s and over the years included several hundreds of acres and parcels named Friendship, Upper Range, Jordan's Hill, Middle Spring, Matthew's Chance, Francis Plains, Swine Yard, Parker's Farm, Dudley, Middle Neck, Hampton, Bloomsberry, Baildon, Bennetts Freshes, Crooked Lane, Frankford, St. Michaels, Hatton, Knave Stand Off, Holland's Spring, Loveday's Hope, Loveday's Purchase, and Loveday's Lot.