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Map 12 Detail of Gist's Inspection, 1783. Adapted from Baltimore County Land
Records (Plats), no. 17, "Plats of Howard's Addition," 1783 MdSA

Map 14 Baltimore Waterfront, 1780. Adapted from Presbury, "A New and
Accurate Map of Baltimore Town," 1780, MdHS

Map 15. Baltimore Waterfront, 1787. Adapted from A P. Folie, "Plan of the Town
of Baltimore and its Environs," 1792, Baltimore City Life Museums

Map 16 Baltimore Waterfront, 1797. Adapted from Warner and Hanna, "Plan
of the City and Environs of Baltimore," 1801, Library of Congress

Notes on Antebellum Easton

HAROLD W. HURST

Many small towns in nineteenth-century America were more important than
their modest population or physical appearance suggested.   Not a few
communities with only one or two thousand inhabitants became places of
consequence by serving as regional or trading centers or thriving market towns
strategically located on navigable rivers, turnpikes, or rail lines.    Other villages
gained prominence as state capitols or as the sites of state universities or prestigious
private colleges.  County seats, especially in the rural South and West, always were
places of periodic importance.

During the antebellum years, and even later, Easton served as a classic example
of a place whose small population belied its role as the public and private center for
a large rural area—in this case the eight counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.^
Located in the middle of that region and easily accessible by water to Annapolis and
the bustling port of Baltimore, Easton was the home of the principal bank, the
leading hotel, the best private school for boys, and the most influential newspapers
in the eastern counties of the state. With a population of only 1,413 in 1850, it was
nevertheless the largest town on the Shore. Serving as the county seat of the wealthy,
planter-dominated Talbot County, its chief buildings consisted of a large and
majestic courthouse, a market place, a jail, a bank, four or five churches, and a
substantial private academy.

Easton's relative importance was further magnified by its proximity to the great
estates of some of Maryland's most prominent and powerful landholding families.
Just a few miles to the north lay Wye House, the magnificent ancestral home of the
Lloyd family. Edward Lloyd VII (1825-1907), proprietor of this estate during the
pre-Civil War years, owned several thousand acres and 346 slaves in 1860.
Goldsboroughs, Harringtons, Hambletons, Hollydays, Hughletts, Martins, Spen-
cers, and Tilghmans occupied lovely mansions and maintained a style of life akin to
that of the leading planters of Virginia and South Carolina. This coterie of powerful
families exercised a dominant hold on the political, economic, and social life of the
town and the surrounding area. They controlled the Easton bank, the agricultural
society, the Easton Academy, the local newspapers and the town's Episcopal church.
More importantly their political influence extended far beyond the boundaries of
Easton and Talbot County. Schooled in statesmanship and nurtured in leadership
traditions, they formed a large proportion of the men who represented the Eastern

Harold W. Hurst has recently published Alexandria on the Potornac: The Portrait of an Antebellum
Community (University Press of America, 1991).

MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE
VOL. 88, NO. 2, SUMMER 1993

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