building lots called ownership of this overlap into question68
(Figure 7).

Eventually the dispute triggered an ejectment action which
was decided in favor of the heirs of Cornelius Howard. The Court
of Appeals of Maryland held that the patent to Lunn's Lott (1673)
was elder to that of Todd's Range (1701); Carroll failed to prove
that he and his predecessors in title were in actual possession
of the disputed strip and his record title was not permitted to
relate back to the Cole's Harbour patent of 1668, but only to the
Todd's Range patent.69

Before his death Cornelius had himself become a subdivider.
In 1765 he had the Assembly add thirty-five acres of the southern
portion of Lunn's Lott to the Town. Thereafter he created a
gridiron of Barre, Conway, Camden and Pratt Streets running east
to west crossed by Hanover and Sharpe Street running north to
south and bordering the basin to the east70 (see Figure 6) .

This southern outskirt was to become known as French Town.
Beginning in 1756 the "Neutral French" or Acadians began arriving
from Nova Scotia from whence they were expelled by the British.
Their first point of settlement was upon South Charles Street
near Lombard. As the numbers grew to several hundreds, their
colony expanded into small houses built in Howard's Addition,
where it was to last for one hundred years.71

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