Kent Island, MD

Kent Island Island is the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay and the home of the first European settlement in what is now the state of Maryland. Many of the early immigrants to the Northern Neck came through Kent Island.

Native American artifacts at Kent Island date back over 12,000 years. The most recent Native American tribe to inhabit the island was the Matapeake tribe, members of the Algonquin Nation. The Matapeakes called the island "Monoponson." Their settlements were though to have been on the southeast side of the island, but the arrival of European settlers pushed the tribe north. As more and more settlers arrived the tribe was forced from the island by violence, disease and the taking of their lands.

The first permanent English settlement on Kent Island was created in 1631 by William Claiborne. Claiborne had arrived in Jamestown, VA as a surveyor in 1621 and by 1626 was named Secretary of State for the colony. Claiborn established a fur trade with the Susquehannock Indians to the north. In 1627 he was granted permission by Virginia Governor George Yeardley to explore the Chesapeake Bay to set up a trading post. He named Kent Island after his birthplace in Kent, England. In June of 1632 the Province of Maryland was formed by King Charles 1st when he granted a charter to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, but William Claiborne continued to recognize Kent Island as a part of Virginia. Claiborne was a Puritan and Calvert's vision for Maryland was that it should be a haven for English Catholics fleeing the European wars of religion.

In 1635 authorities from Maryland seized one of Claiborne's trading ships and Claiborne tried to take it back by force unsuccessfully when three Kent Islander's were killed. In 1637 when Claiborne returned to England for business troops from Maryland took over the island. The island changed allegiances several times over the following decades, sometimes through legal maneuvering, through force, or through playing the dueling religious factions against each other. By 1658 Kent Island was firmly in Maryland's control even though Virginia still laid claim to the island up until 1776.

The violent clashes between between Calvert and Claiborne, especially in the 1640's, sent many of the early settlers with allegiance to Virginia or the Anglican church south below the Potomac River to seek a more stable life in the Northern Neck.