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To Pat Melville In gratitude for your 39 years of service to the state and to the Archives. Your knowledge of Maryland’s permanent records and your willingness to share it will be missed by all who have worked with you. This compilation of your articles written for the Bulldog over the last 16 years is a measure of the depth of your understanding of and interest in the historical records of Maryland. You will be missed but you have our very best wishes for a wonderful retirement! From your friends and colleagues at the Maryland State Archives. June 5, 2006 THE ARCHIVISTS’ BULLDOG THE ARCHIVISTS’ BULLDOG Vol. 4, No. 10, 5 March 1990 Vol. 4, No. 11, 12 March 1990 RESEARCH NOTES by Pat Melville RESEARCH NOTES by Pat Melville A recent research question involved the establish- Nancy notes the maps in Mathews, Counties of ment of election districts in Anne Arundel County Maryland are reproduced in The Hammond- and the citations for specific laws. The researcher Harwood Atlas of Historical Maps of Maryland, was referred to Edward B. Mathews, The Counties 1608-1908. of Maryland: Their Origin, Boundaries, and Elec- tion Districts (Maryland Geological Survey Special SERENDIPITOUS NEWS Publication, Vol. VI, Part V, 1907), rather than the Doug McElrath and Lois Carr supplied the answer index to laws. This book is very useful for people to last week’s query about Ded. Pots. It is an abbre- wanting information about the establishment and viation for Dedimus Potestatem, defined in Black’s boundaries of both counties and election districts Law Dictionary as follows: “In old English practice, within each county. a writ or commission issuing out of chancery, em- In the introduction Mathews discusses the origin of powering the persons named therein to perform cer- county names and the times and methods of erect- tain acts, as to administer oaths to defendants in chan- ing counties, election districts, and precincts. Elec- cery and take their answers, to administer oaths of tion districts were first authorized in 1798 by the office to justices of the peace, etc. 3 Bl.Comm. 447. General Assembly. The law specified the number of It was anciently allowed for many purposes not now districts for each county. A subsequent law appointed in use, as to make an attorney, to take the acknowl- commissioners to survey the district boundaries. edgment of a fine, etc. (Some of these surveys have been found in land In the United States, a commission to take testimony records; others have never been located.) Mathews was sometimes termed a “dedimus potestatem.” summarizes the means of changes for later years. Usually the General Assembly mandated increases in the number of districts or changes in boundaries. A few counties received a general power to erect THE ARCHIVISTS’ BULLDOG and change their own districts or precincts. Vol. 4, No. 15, 9 April 1990 The rest of book contains specific information about RESEARCH NOTES by Pat Melville each county, arranged alphabetically. Mathews dis- cusses the erection of the county and its boundaries, Occasionally we receive requests for information including subsequent changes. He then outlines chro- about trade names, company names, corporate nologically the development of election districts, names, or names of businesses. Usually the person polling places, and precincts by citing and summa- is setting up a business and wants to know if a cer- rizing each law. tain name is already being used. There are two places to find this information for any one jurisdiction - Numerous color plates showing the counties for Dept. of Assessments and Taxation and the county blocks of time appear throughout the book. and Baltimore City circuit courts. This publication should be used with great care be- One source of information is the series of charter cause some pages are loose and others are tearing records for incorporated institutions. For unincor- porated institutions there is a series called (Agency Record) which dates from 1922. A law passed then required business agents or any person(s) doing busi- ness under any designation other than ones own 1 name(s) to file a certificate with the clerk of the cir- Arundel County. Nicholas and his older brother cuit court where the business was conducted and with Henry, both free blacks, inherited about 800 acres what is now DAT. The certificate, listing owner(s) from their father Bennett Darnall. Since 1814, after and place and name of the business, was to be re- Bennett’s death, Henry and Nicholas had been liv- corded in (Agency Record). ing with Quaker families in Philadelphia and desired to continue residing in Pennsylvania. The petition Since researchers usually want current information, then contains the following statements. it is best to refer them to DAT, Charter Division, or the appropriate circuit court. “The circumstance of the said Infant being himself a colored person and descended from a slave and having conscientious scruples against the practice THE ARCHIVISTS’ BULLDOG of slavery would render it most unpleasant and un- profitable to him to retain the ownership of lands in Vol. 4, No. 27, 3 August 1990 a slave holding state where it is not possible to work such lands without employing slaves in the cultiva- RESEARCH NOTES by Pat Melville tion of tobacco and other planted crops. Indeed if he The Immigration and Naturalization Service in is not allowed to dispose of these lands and to con- Washington, DC has an index to naturalizations from vert them into a more satisfactory and profitable fund, 1906 to the present, regardless of which federal, state, the said infant will thus be deprived of the full en- or local court handled the process. This index is use- joyment of this Estate bequeathed to him by his fa- ful for researchers who do not know where a person ther. But admitting that these conscientious scruples was naturalized. The index will specify the place and are not to be regarded and that no wright whatever court and then the research can contact that institu- is to be allowed to the disinclination of the said in- tion or an archives if the records have been so trans- fant to employ slaves as is indispensable on such an ferred. Estate as the one that is owned by him, it cannot be denied that at least one half the value of any prop- erty must be lost to the individual possessing it who is compelled to hold it in a community where he does THE ARCHIVISTS’ BULLDOG not stand upon the same political and civil rights as Vol. 4, No. 31, September 17, 1990 other members of society and where he is subjected to do many degrading and burthinsome disabilities RESEARCH NOTES by Pat Melville that he must almost prefer abandoning his property While trying to locate something else, I encountered to retaining it under such a pressure.” an unusual chancery case. We all know that equity Other documents in the case reveal that Nicholas and proceedings contain a wealth of information. On Henry Darnall and two other brothers, William and occasion we should remind ourselves of this fact and Philip, were the children of Bennett Darnall and his the following notes are serving that purpose. slave Susanna. Bennett Darnall in his will mentioned Many equity proceedings in Maryland courts in- manumissions for Susanna and her children. In fact, volved petitions to sell land. The stated reasons are three manumissions, dated 1802, 1805, and 1810, usually fairly routine. The parcel is too small for di- were filed with the AA Court because Darnall was vision among several heirs or the sale proceeds are uncertain of the legality of the earlier ones. These needed to pay the debts of an estate. CHANCERY documents, not part of the chancery case, provide COURT (Chancery Record) 129, pp. 308-323 more details about the family. Susanna had two other [MdHR S 517-17843;1-35-3-38] contains a case in- sons in 1805 who were not included in the 1810 stituted in part for nobler purposes. On July 17, 1824, manumission and were mentioned in Darnall’s will, Robert Welch of Ben, as guardian of Nicholas but not acknowledged as his children. The 1810 Darnall, filed a petition for the sale of land in Anne manumission noted Susanna as deceased and gave 2 the ages of William 17, Philip 14, Henry 8, and died of smallpox. In 1785 a man murdered his wife Nicholas 6. and four children with an ax and then stabbed him- self with a penknife. In 1785 another runaway slave After Welch filed his petition and exhibits the died, this time from the freezing cold. One man stole Chancellar appointed commissioners to appraise the a keg of brandy and four days later was found dead land, part of Portland Manor, and to make recom- with the empty keg. In 1786 a woman was accused mendations. The commissioners valued the land at of murdering her newborn infant. In 1787 a man beat $13,495 and recommended that it be sold because it his wife to death. could not be cultivated without slaves and the cur- rent proprietor was a slaveholder. Robert Welch of Several men while in jail, including one imprisoned Ben was appointed trustee to sell the land in 1825. for debt, died of natural causes. The inquests list At this point the proceedings stop. Maybe Welch many accidental drownings, many deaths attributed could not complete the sale before Nicholas Darnall to drinking including a man who, while trying to come of age. climb a hill, tumbled into a creek at the bottom of the hill, and several suicides by hanging.

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