Early Maryland County Courts.        xlv


     ology of the marriage certificate of William Sharpe and Elizabeth Thomas,
     dated July 4, 1673, and recorded in the Talbot County Court, as well as the
     list of witnesses, shows that one, or both, were certainly Quakers (Arch. Md.
     liv, 603-604).
       Although there were a few Quakers in Charles and Kent counties they seem
     to have been more numerous in Talbot and Somerset. It is to be noted that in
     all the above cited entries these non-jurors and other offenders are not called
     by this or any other name, although from other sources it is known that they
     were Quakers. In a neighborhood fight reported in the Kent County record
     “Quaker” seems to have been used as an opprobrious epithet (Arch. Md. liv,
     165).
       Indian affairs of moment did not come before the county courts but were
     heard by the Governor sitting in Council, or as Chief Judge of the Provincial
     Court. But not a little of interest concerning the Indians found its way into
     the county court records, either because it was of minor public significance, or
     was a pale reflection of more important events recorded elsewhere. The wars
     against the Indians, to which references are constantly to be found in these
     county records, refer to the expeditions sent by the Provincial authorities in
     the late fifties and the sixties to the head of the Chesapeake to assist the now
     friendly Susquehannocks to hold back the Five Nations with whom they were
     then at war.
       Until 1658 there were practically no settlements on the eastern shore of
     the Upper Chesapeake except those Ofl Kent Island. There was an Indian fort
     on the Susquehanna River, known as the Susquehannock Fort, erected by the
     Indians of that name to protect them from the depredations of the Northern
     tribes. At times Maryland settlers were sent to assist the friendly Susque
     hannocks, and thus protect the white settlements on the upper Bay. There was
     also a fort, or block house, on Kent Island, sometimes called the Crayford
     (Craford) Fort, which dated from the first settlement by Claiborne on that
     island. The Susquehannock Fort and Crayford are several times mentioned in
     these county records. But whether the old Crayford Fort was identical with the
     fort referred to in the Kent records used for a dwelling house by Captain Thomas
     Bradnox is uncertain. The Kent court record under date of September I, 1657,
     recites the details of a drunken brawl between a certain John Salter and Thomas
     Bradnox, a member of the court, and the attack upon Mrs. Bradnox by Salter at
     the Bradnox home. Reference is made to Salter as having been several times
     thrown out of “the fort “, but we are not told whether this was merely a
     stockaded house, or whether it was the old Kent Island Crayford Fort re
     modeled as a dwelling house (Arch. Md. liv, 118). Bradnox is known to have
     owned and sold a tract of land called the “Craford Plantation” (Arch. Md. liv,
     119-120).

       A small force of settlers seems to have been maintained by the Province at
     the Susquehannock Fort, and to have been reinforced when Indian troubles
     became especially threatening. On the whole, however, in great part due to the
     Proprietary's friendly attitude towards the natives, Maryland perhaps suffered