Established as Patuxent County in 1654, it received Lord Baltimore’s family name in 1658. Now the state's smallest county, it once encompassed most of Prince George’s County and parts of Anne Arundel and St. Mary’s counties. A narrow peninsula with the “Cliffs of Calvert” on the Chesapeake Bay side, the county slopes gently to the Patuxent River on the west. At its southern tip is the deep-water port of Solomons. Although Capt. John Smith explored the area in 1608, the first permanent settlement was on St. Leonard's Creek circa 1640.