34 TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT

desposited with us in the course of the kst two years by Mrs. James N. Gallo-
way and Mrs. Frederick G. Richards. Last year, 303 items were added to the
261 items already present. The collection deals mainly with John Ridout and
his family, but includes letters by Cecilius Calvert, Governor Horatio Sharpe,
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and others. It also contains references to
many prominent Marylanders, such as Daniel Dulany, Jeremiah Townley
Chase, Charles Willson Peale, William Pinkney and Benjamin Tasker. At pre-
sent this collection is restricted and may be seen only by special permission of
the depositors.

The Mercer Family Papers, deposited by Mr. Frank L. Pinney, contain
considerable genealogical information regarding this distinguished family
which numbers among others, John Francis Mercer, Governor of Maryland
from 1801 to 1803. Of particular interest is a series of fifteen letters written
by Mary Swann Mercer giving the female viewpoint on events of the Civil
War. In one letter, she quotes a Southern soldier as saying "before they take
Richmond the Yankees will have to wade up to their waists in blood, and when
they kill all the men the women will fight them."

The Brooke Papers, comprising over a thousand items, are interesting
from a different viewpoint. The focus of attention here is on the many-sided
business transactions of a single prominent Maryland family with large hold-
ings of land. They are the joint deposit of Miss Margaret Brooke, Mrs. Robert
H. Henderson and Mrs. Charles G. Tumbleson.

Through the generosity of Mr. Arthur T. Elliott and Miss Elizabeth V.
Davis, administrators of the estate of Mrs. Elizabeth V. Davis, we received an
almost complete file of the Maryland Republican for the years 1836-1852, and
several records kept by the publishers of the newspaper, an Annapolis weekly.
Mrs. Davis, until her recent death, resided in the so-called Carroll-Davis House,
which has been so much in the local limelight recently, by virtue of the fact
that it has been moved from its original site on Main Street, where it stood
for over 200 years, to its present location on the St. John's College campus.

In cases where the owner was unwilling to part with an original docu-
ment, we have sought permission to make photocopies. Through the generosity
of Mr. and Mrs. Orlando Ridout IV, we were permitted to make a microfilm
copy of an index they had prepared of the Parish Register of St. Margaret's
P. E. Church of Westminster Parish in Anne Arundel County for the years
1699-1885. Mr. Ridout was also instrumental in locating and obtaining for
us permission to microfilm the Account Book of Robert Pinkney, an Anna-
polis tailor, who numbered many of the most important citizens of the City
among his clients. The original is owned by the Carroll County Historical
Society. Mr. J. Reaney Kelly, who deserves our gratitude for unearthing inter-
esting manuscripts in the past, among them the Mercer Family Papers, brought
to our attention the diary of John Sellman. It gives a good picture of the