Created on August 22, 1666, and named for Lady Mary Somerset, sister-in-law of Cecilius Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore, Somerset County originally included present-day Wicomico and Worcester Counties and parts of Delaware and Virginia. The settlement of the lower Eastern Shore was a strategic achievement for Maryland proprietors because it anchored loyal settlers in a region with territorial conflicts to the east on Delaware Bay and to the south on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.