Oxford is a waterfront town and former colonial port in Talbot County, Maryland, United States.

While Oxford officially marks the year 1683 as its founding because in that year it was first named by the Maryland General Assembly as a seaport, the town began between 1666 and 1668 when 30 acres (120,000 m2) were laid out as a town called Oxford by William Stephens Jr.. By 1669 one of the first houses was built for Innkeeper Francis Armstrong (see Talbot County Land Records, A 1, f.

[4] In 1694, Oxford and a new town called Anne Arundel (now Annapolis) were selected as the only ports of entry for the entire Maryland province.

Until the American Revolution, Oxford enjoyed prominence as an international shipping center surrounded by wealthy tobacco plantations.

Early inhabitants included Robert Morris Sr., agent for a Liverpool shipping firm who greatly influenced the town's growth; his son, Robert Morris Jr., known as "the financier of the Revolution;" Jeremiah Banning, sea captain, war hero, and statesman; The Reverend Thomas Bacon, Anglican clergyman who wrote the first compilation of the laws of Maryland; Matthew Tilghman, known as the "patriarch of Maryland" and "father of statehood"; and Colonel Tench Tilghman, aide-de-camp to George Washington and the man who carried the message of General Cornwallis's surrender to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

The cemetery itself was used in the opening sequence of the 1988 feature film, Clara's Heart, starring Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris.

After the Civil War, Oxford was revived by the completion of the railroad in 1871 and by improved methods of canning and packing which opened national markets for oysters from the Chesapeake Bay.

In the early part of the 20th century, the oyster beds played out, the packing houses closed, other businesses went bankrupt, and the railway and steamships eventually disappeared.

Oxford became a sleepy little town inhabited mainly by watermen who still worked the waters of the Tred Avon River.

Oxford is host to the oldest privately operated ferry service still in continuous use in the United States.

Oxford today is still a waterman's town, but is enjoying a new resurgence based on tourism and leisure activities.

[7] Oxford is located at 38°41'12" North, 76°10'15" West (38.686776, -76.170842)[8] on the south bank of the Tred Avon river, near its mouth, where it empties into the Choptank.