Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 60, there's something about Maryland.

Remember that this is a listener's supported podcast. If you enjoy the series, then please consider signing up for membership.

You can do that by going to the website, The History of Podcast.com and clicking on the PayPal subscription button.

Special thanks to our newest pioneer,

listener Karen. Thanks. I couldn't do the show without you. The last colony we have to deal with,

for the moment at least, is Maryland. Maryland is a remarkable colony in its foundation. While the other colonies had been established either by groups of powerful figures or by mass movements, Maryland existed due to the efforts of a single

person, George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore. George Calvert was raised in the flurry of activity of the early

colonial period. He was a member of the Virginia Company and the Council for New England. He was given

a grant of land in Newfoundland in 1622, where he established the colony of Alvallon. Soon after this, he retired from

public life, almost certainly, because of his conversion to Catholicism. He moved to his Newfoundland

colony, but he found the climate too bitter and cold, and so he wrote to Charles I to see if he

could move his colony southwards. He travelled to Virginia in 1629, and found the climate much more

agreeable, but Virginia was an Anglican colony. George Calvert couldn't stay there, but he liked the area.

So he set his sights on the land towards the northern end of the Chesapeake. He wrote to Charles

the first to see if he could have this. Virginians were furious, but Virginia was a royal colony,

so Charles was free to ignore them. Calvert was his friend,

and so Charles happily gave him the land, and indeed, to a large extent, let him write the charter.

Calvert died while the charter was being written, and so it was issued in the name of his son, Cecilius,

the second Lord Baltimore in 1632. He was given the land between 40 degrees latitude in the north,

all the way to the south bank of the Potomac River. It had some 10 million acres, and he was given the power of the

Bishop of Durham, as we discussed in the previous episode. This was to be named Maryland.

...