Somerset County.         xxxiii

   of the Lower House of the Maryland Assembly as the first representative of
   Somerset County in 1669, and again represented this county in 1678. On
   October 7, 1679, he became a member of the Governor's Council, serving on
   this until his death in 1687. From 1684 to 1687, when Charles, the third Lord
   Baltimore, was absent from the colony, he was one of the members of the
   Council who administered the affairs of the Province during the minority of
   Benedict Leonard Calvert, whom his father had designated when five years
   of age to be Governor, when Charles left the Province for England in May,
   1684 (Archiv. Md. xvii, 247-250). Stevens was a member of the Church of
   England, although apparently a man of liberal religious tendencies, as he was
   one of those who signed a petition asking for the appointment of a Presbyterian
   “godly minister” for Somerset County, and seems to have had a sympathetic
   attitude towards the Quakers and the Evangelical minister, Robert Maddox.
   He lived on his plantation, “Rehoboth “, on the Pocomoke River, where he
   died, December 23, 1687, and a tombstone to his memory still exists there. The
   death record of Richard Stevens, the brother of William, reveals their parent—
   age, and with some misspellings their English background (Somerset Co. Court
   Proc. Liber I. K. L. 241, MSS).
     John White ( -1685) became a member of the lower Eastern Shore court
   in 1665. His antecedents have not been learned. He first appeared on the
   Eastern Shore of Maryland about 1664, and was a member of the court there,
   August 25, 1665, and was continued on the new Somerset County Court when
   that county was established in 1666, serving until 1676. He represented Somer-
   set in the Lower House of the Assembly in 1678, and may also have served later
   as sheriff of the county (Arch. Md. vii, 5, 7). He was appointed in 1669 Captain
   of the Somerset County Horse. He lived on his plantation, “Cordicall “, on
   the Pocomoke River. He died at “Rehobeth “, the home of William Stevens,
   who was probably his brother-in-law, and was buried there, June 3, 1685.
     John Winder ( -1698), a member of the court on the lower Eastern Shore
   of Maryland in 1665, and of the first Somerset County Court in 1666, came
   into Maryland from Nansemond County, Virginia, in 1665, and settled at
   Manokin. He appears as a member of the court of Somerset until 1680. He
   also held various military commissions, and in 1697 was styled “Lieutenant-
   Colonel “. About 1670 he moved from Manokin to a plantation on the
   Wicomico River, and died there in September 1698. Winder figured in a case
   reported in the Somerset County records under date of August 1674, which at
   the time gave rise to not a little scandal. A certain Edward Dickeson and his
   wife charged Winder with being the father of a child by the latter while she
   was Dickeson's wife and demanded payment for the child's support. The
   court seems to have looked upon the charges as blackmail, or if true, that the
   woman was guilty of adultery, so ordered twenty five lashes to be given her
   (Somerset Co. Court Proc. Liber A. Z. No. 8, folios 364-367).
     James Jones ( -1677), a member of the lower Eastern Shore court in 1665,
   came into Maryland from Northampton County, Virginia, about the year 1663.
   He was probably a native of Monmouthshire, Wales, and was in Virginia as
   early as 1660. On August 25, 1665, he was appointed a justice of the lower