cx S3gl95 MARYLAND MANUAL 1001. A COMPENDIUM Legal, Hiswicai and Siatislical leleraiaiioe KKF.ATIXC; TO THE STATE OF MARYLAND PUBLISHED UNDER ACT OF ASSEMBLY. Compiled dy me Secretary ot State. BALTIMORE: Wm. J. C. Dulany Co. QREDIT is due to Mr. Elihu S. Riley, of the Annapolis Bar, for the historic portion of this volume. Mr. Riley is one of the recognized historians of Maryland, having given a great portion of his life to the study of Maryland’s history. Other contributors, whose aid I wish to acknowledge, are Mr. Harry J. Hopkins, Mr. Rouis H. Dielman and Mr. Carl Hardy. Wilfred Bateman, Secretary of State. Annapolis, Md., January ist, 1902. Chapter 240 of the Acts of 1900. An Act to provide for the annual compilation and publication of a Manual of the State of Maryland. Be it; enacted b that it shall be the duty of ythe the SecretaryGeneral Assemblyof State ofto accuratelyMaryland, prepare and publish annually, on December thirty-first of each year a Manual of the State of Maryland. tiEC. 2. And be it enacted, that said Manual shall consist of not less than fifteen hundred copies in each year, five hundred of which shall be bound in cloth and shall contain a copy of the Charter and Consti- tution of the State, a complete list of Members of the legislature, with their postoffice addresses, the names and addresses of all State and county officers elected by the people, as well as those appointed by the Governor and the Board of Public Works; a brief summary of the duties of the several State officers; the official returns of the State election of each year; a list of State, educational, charitable, reforma- tory and benevolent institutions, with the amounts appropriated to each by the State; the amounts paid by counties to the public schools 6 011 ofr thei State at theaccount close of of public each schoolfiscal year;tax; thethe grossarea, andpopulation, net debt assessable basis and tax rates in the several counties of the State and City of Baltimore; the construction of the Judicial system of this State, the official pay-roll of the State, and such other information as his judgment may seem right and proper. Sec. 3. And be it enacted, That the said Manual shall be distributed as follows: Twenty-five copies, bound in cloth, to the Maryland State iabrary; ten copies, two of which shall be bound in cloth, to each of the Members of the Legislature; one copy to each of the Clerks of the Circuit Courts of the State and the several courts in Baltimore City one copy to each of the Boards of County Commissioners of this State,’ a re,lla nln utedi j byu the Secretary' g number of State to the to Executive each of Department,the several Statesto be distrib-of the Union, to the public libraries m this and other States, and to officials and citizens of this State. Sec. 4. And be it enacted, That for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act, compiling, printing and distributing said Man- ual, the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby annually appropriated; and the Comptroller of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to draw his warrant upon the State Treasurer, who is hereby directed to pay same, in avor of the Secretary of State upon the presentation of proper rouchers by him that the work above mentioned has been fully done which vouchers shall be filed in the office of the State Comptroller. ’ Approved April 5th, 1900. M .Yi ; V LA N’ l ). HISTORICAL SKETCH. Maryland, situated between the parallels of 370 53' and 390 44' north latitude, and the meridians of 750 04' and 790 33+; west longitude (the exact western boundary being yet undetermined,) is one of the upper tiers of Southern States. Its boundaries are: Mason and Dixon’s line on the north; the State of Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean on the east; on the south, aline drawn westward from the ocean to the western bank of the Potomac river, thence following the western bank of that river to its source; and on the west, a line drawn due north from this source to Mason and Dixon’s line. Its gross area is 12,210 square miles, of which 9,860 square miles are land surface; the included portion of the Chesapeake bay, 1,203 square miles; Assateague bay on the Atlantic cost, 93 square miles; with 1,054 square miles of smaller estuaries and rivers. The Chesapeake bay ascends to within a few miles of its northern boundary, dividing the State into the Eastern and Western Shores. The rivers, excluding mere estuaries of the bay, are the Potomac, Patuxent, Patapsco, Gunpowder, Susquehanna, Elk, Sassafras, Chester, Choptank, Nanticoke, Wicomico and Pocomoke, all emptying into the Chesapeake bay. Besides these, the coast-line of the bay is deeply indented with a multitude of creeks, coves and other estuaries, penetrating the land in all directions, usually bearing the names of rivers, and often navigable to some distance by vessels of light draft. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is there a coast-line pro- portionately so extensive, or any country offering such facili- ties for water transportation as tide-water Maryland. Along the ocean frontier runs a narrow reef of sand, inclosing and sheltering Synepuxent and Assateague bays, and giving inland navigation along the whole Atlantic coast of the State. Maryland is divided into twenty-three counties, of which Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick, Carroll, Balti- more, Harford and Cecil form the north tier; Howard, Mont- gomery, Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s lie on the west; and Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Caroline, Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset and Wor- cester on the east side of the bay. Of these twenty-three, seven do not lie on navigable waters. 4 MARYLAND MANUAL. Maryland presents a great variety of configuration, soil and climate. The four most westerly counties extend through the systems of mountain ranges known as the Allegany and the Blue Ridge; east of these is the Piedmont region, gently inclining towards tide-water, and on both sides of the bay lies the Coastal Plain. The foundation of Maryland is primarily due to George Calvert, first Baron of Baltimore. When that nobleman, who had been a trusted councillor of James I, and had held the office of Principal Secretary of State, became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, he retired from public life and deter- mined to spend the remainder of his days in the New World. He already held by charter a considerable part of the Island of Newfoundland, called the province of Avalon; and to it he removed with his family in 1628. But after about a year’s sojourn in this bleak region, the extreme severity of the long winters, and the evident impossibility of making Avalon more than a fishing station, determined Baltimore to seek a home in some more genial clime; and he asked the King, Charles I, for a grant of land north of the Potomac, within the territory that had previously been granted to the Virginia Company, but which now, by the legal forfeiture of their charter, was again in the King’s hands. His request was granted, and the charter made out. Before it had passed the great seal, Baltimore died, and the charter was issued in 1632, to his sou, Cecilius Calvert, second Baron of Baltimore, who named his province Maryland, in compli- ment to the Queen, Henrietta Maria. The territory thus conveyed was considerably more exten- sive than that covered by the present State of Maryland, being bounded on the north by the fortieth parallel of north latitude, on the east by the Delaware bay and river, and the Atlantic ocean, on the south by a line drawn from the mouth of the Potomac river eastward to the ocean, and on the west by the farther or right-hand bank of the Potomac to its most distant source, and thence due north to the fortieth parallel. The privileges conveyed by the charter were the most com- plete ever granted by an English sovereign to a subject; the Proprietary was invested with palatinate authority, under which were included all royal powers, both of peace and war. The province was entirely self-governed, all laws being made by the Proprietary and the freeman, and these laws required no confirmation from the King or Parliament. By an express clause the King renounced for himself and for his successors forever, all right of taxation in Maryland. All that was re- quired of the colonists was that they should be British sub- jects, and that the Proprietary should acknowledge the King HISTORICAL SKETCH. 0 of England as his sovereign, paying him, in lieu of all ser- vices or taxes, two Indian arrows yearly, and the fifth of all gold or silver that might be found. Cecilius fitted out two small vessels, the Ark and Dove, in which the first band of colonists set sail on November 20, 1633. These consisted of about twenty gentlemen of good families, all or most of whom were Catholics, and about two hundred laborers, craftsmen and servants, most of them Prot- estants. Baltimore’s younger brother, Leonard Calvert, was governor and head of the expedition, assisted by two coun- cillors, Jerome Hawley and Thomas Cornwaleys. Careful in- structions for their guidance were drawn up by Baltimore, in which he charged them to observe strict impartiality, and to give the Protestants no cause of offence.