Commissioners Alexander Lawson and Thomas Sheredine also
dabbled in real estate at the edge of town. Overlooking the
horseshoe turn in the Falls to the north, just outside the town
boundary, was a seven and one-half acre bluff of land; although
still titled in the name of Charles Carroll of Annapolis, Lawson
had an interest in it. Further to the north and east of the
Falls, Sheredine (along with his trading partner Thomas Sligh)
had an option to buy out the Colegate orphans' residual holding
which surrounded Oldtown.50

In 1747 the Assembly passed an act ordering the annexation
of eighteen of the acres of lands owned by Harrison, Sheredine,
and Lawson to Baltimore Town, and thereafter the commissioners
employed Nicholas Ruxton Gay to survey the same and to lay it out
with lots, streets and alleys51 (see Figure 6) .

The new lots failed to sell. Undaunted, Sligh and Sheredine
exercised their option in 1750 and for one hundred pounds
sterling acquired approximately two hundred ninety acres east of
the Falls from John and Thomas Colegate, the sons and devisees of
Richard Colegate. This tract had been part of the parcel that
James Todd had sold to John Hurst in 1701 (ten acres acres
already having been subdivided as Jones' Town) and that Richard
Colegate had foreclosed upon. To be on the safe side, Sligh and
Sheredine also obtained a quitclaim from the foreclosed
mortgagor, John Hurst.52

The Sligh and Sheridine partnership prevailed upon the
Assembly at its 1750 session to annex twenty-five of their newly

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