Historical Society, I came upon a survey of some of the first
land patents in the Baltimore region prepared by George
Gouldsmith Presbury in 1786. Presbury overlaid the sometimes
conflicting metes and bounds and included a wealth of information
in his notes. Working with the chain of title, and using the
Presbury Plat to maintain a sense of place, I found myself in a
position to set the record straight. And in the final analysis
the links in this chain then could be verified in the land
records found in the Maryland State Achives.

The task of describing how two thousand acres were parceled
out over almost two hundred years is difficult. I try to do the
job by impressing in the reader's mind the multi-dimensions of
time, place, and personalities. The text which follows is ordered
chronologically with reminders of the outside events which were
shaping the times  -- the Catholic oppression and Glorious
Revolution, the growth of the Maryland economy in wheat and iron,
Scotch-Irish re-migration from central Pennsylvania to Baltimore,
and the American Revolution. A series of maps and pictures
project a sense of place, even after reclamation projects began
to change the lay of the land and shape of the shoreline. And
enough genealogical information is included to permit the careful
reader to distinguish between the successive generations of
Carrolls, Howards, Fells, Moales, and Smiths.

For students of the institution of property this essay will
place the building blocks (patents, grants, escheats, adverse
possessions, entailments, and leaseholds) on their first American