Augustine Herman

Who was Augustine Herman?

Augustine Herman, First Lord of Bohemia Manor was a Bohemian explorer, merchant, and cartographer who lived in New Amsterdam and Cecil County, Maryland. In the employment of Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, he produced a remarkably accurate map of the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay regions of North America, in exchange for which he was permitted to establish an enormous plantation that he named Bohemia Manor in what is now southeastern Cecil County, Maryland.

Land rights to the area now known as St. Augustine, Maryland were granted to Herman by Lord Baltimore prior to 1686 but the Herman family was never able to lay proper claim to the title.

Chroniclers have spelled the surname variously: Herman, Herrman, Harman, Harmans, Heerman, Hermans, Heermans, etc. Augustine Herman himself usually wrote Herman, which is now the accepted style. He frequently added “Bohemiensis”, as a suffix.