xviii               Kent County.

         and notwithstanding his “ felonious practices” was still on the bench in 1653
         (Arch. Md. iii, 182-183, 193; iv, 436; x, 291). He could not sign his name,
         making his mark on various legal instruments, as also when he recorded his
         fidelity to the Commonwealth in 1652 (p. 5). He was made Sheriff in 1653
         (p. 21), but does not appear on the court again until he was reappointed by
         Fendall in 1658 (Arch. Md. xli, 89). Bradnox lived on Kent Island in what
         was, or recently had been, a fort, possibly the old Crayford Fort, as he was
         the owner of a tract of land on the island called the “Craford Plantation”
         in 1657 (p. 120). A disgraceful episode which occurred in 1657 at his home
         in the fort, which ended in a free fight, was one in which the participants were
         Bradnox, his wife, and a certain John Salter, all of whom were apparently
         intoxicated. The details of this are fully narrated in the Kent record (pp. 116-
         12 1). In 1659 he was convicted of profanity, a second offence, and was fined;
         and at the same court was presented for drunkenness and disturbing the peace
         (p. 178). He was a member of the bench at this time. On at least one occasion
         he was under suspicion as a hog-stealer (Arch. Md. iv, 447-448). The in-
         human treatment of servants by Bradnox and his wife runs through the early
         Provincial and county court records. Their cruelty to Sarah Taylor has already
         been commented upon (Arch. Md. liii, p. xxxiii). He and his wife were indicted
         in the Provincial Court, October 11, 1661, for having caused the death
         of their servant, Thomas Watson. Before the case came up for trial a few
         weeks later Bradnox had died, and the jury refused to prosecute the widow
         (Arch. Md. xli, 482, 500-503). The Kent County Court record contains con-
         stant references to him, including a serious charge made by a servant maid.
         After his death the militia company of which he had been made Captain by
         Fendall in 1658 reported to the Council that the money in his hands which
         was to be used for the purchase of a drum and colors had been appropriated
         to his own use (Arch. Md. iii, 455). Bradnox's stormy career closed in 1661.
          The Coursey family, or as they later called themselves, De Courcy, first
         appear in Maryland in 1651. There were three brothers, John, William, and
         Henry, all of whom settled on the upper Eastern Shore about this time. It is
         probable that they came into Maryland from lower Virginia either with, or
         soon after, the Puritan emigration from Virginia in 1649-1650, as there is
         mention of a Henry Coursey in a Lower Norfolk, Virginia, deed dated April
         20, 1651. They are known to have had affiliations in Dublin, Ireland, but were
         Protestants in the seventeenth century. In February, 1663/4, Secretary Thomas
         Hatton sent a letter to Thomas Bradnox, Sheriff of Kent, by Mr. John Coursey,
         introducing the bearer, as one who “upon the Invitation of some friends
         comes amongst you to try his Fortunes at Kent his Quallity and good Carriage
         will I know purchase Respect from all “ (p. 21). He was clerk of the Kent
         County Court from 1658 to 1660, sheriff in 1660, and a justice, 1660-1661.
         Reference to William and Henry Coursey will be made under Talbot County.
          Although the Kent court proceedings printed here begin with the year 1648
         and end with 1676, a period of twenty-nine years, there are three breaks in
         the records, covering in all eleven years. The condition of the old record books
         is fully described in Louis Dow Scisco's notes interpolated throughout the