liv        Early Maryland County Courts.


           1656, shows a payment of 200 pounds of tobacco to “person Rosior for Com
           ing to Christen young Will Cox” (Arch. Md. liz', 98). John Legat, a minister
           of Charles County, who was brought before the Provincial Court in March
           1662/3, charged by Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo with having married certain ser
           vants without a license, was acquitted (Arch. Md. xlix, 84-85). Legat is only
           incidently nientioned in the Charles County Court record (pp. 270, 345). The
           paucity of Protestant clergymen in southern Maryland is shown in the case
           previously cited of Giles Tompkinson, who when brought before the Charles
           County Court, November 14, 1665, on the charge of bastardy, claimed the
           validity of a common law marriage by consent and proclamation, because there
           was at the time no Protestant clergyman in the Province, and as a lawful church
           man there was no other form of marriage ceremony possible (pp. xxxiv,
           599). The Rev. Francis Doughtie had left Charles County some three years
           before this date. There are only two references in the county records to a
           Catholic priest, and both of these are to the well known Father Francis Fitz
           herbert (pp. 133, 440), who had been tried and acquitted on the charge of
           treason and sedition at a Provincial Court held in October 1658, when it was
           charged among other things, that he had threatened to excommunicate Thomas
           Gerrard, the lord of St. Clement's Manor, for not bringing his wife and family
           to mass (Arch. Md. xii, 144-146, 566-567). At a Charles County Court held
           July 2, 1661, Mr. William Robinson, a planter, had a certain \Villiam Wenham
           brought before the court who, he charged “hath dishonored your Petitioners
           hous by committing Fornication” with one of Robinson's maidservants. A
           witness testified, when the question of marriage was raised, that Wenham had
           said that “hee was afrayd Mt. Fitch herbert woold excommunicate him “, but
           that “hee knew not what to doe to procure a pare of shoes and stockings to
           bee married in” (p.133-134).

             Mention is to be found of churches in both Charles and Talbot counties.
           At the March 4, 1661/2 session of the Charles County Court, Mr. Edmund
           Lendsey, a church warden, sued a certain William Hills for 150 pounds of
           tobacco, which the latter had promised that he would pay the minister, and the
           court ordered the payment to Lendsey as churchwarden (p. 193). The Rev.
           John Legat was doubtless the minister referred to. On July 22, 1661, Lendsey
           had patented a tract of 100 acres on the north side of the Potomac on the
           easternmost side of a creek “ formerly called Nanjemy Creeke but now Avon
           River “, and on February 10, 1662/3, assigned this patent to William Fox,
           reserving unto the Church oiic Acre of land which formarly he had given
           unto the Church . . . which the Church now standeth on” (p.328-329). At
           a court held September 17, 1672, in Talbot County, reference was made to a
           highway from Corsico Creek to the Church by the highway between Chester
           River and Wye River (Arch. Md. liv, 540), and at the March, 1672/3, court
           Simond Clymer successfully sued William Young for 400 pounds of tobacco
           for work that he had done in building the church (Arch. Md. liv, 556). That
           the church had a clergyman is to be seen by an order of the Talbot Court,
           September 16, 1673, for the payment of 1000 pounds of tobacco to Mr. James
           Clayland for a sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. John Leavens (Arch.