xliv                 Introduction.

        Neck cases, which involved land that had been twice escheated to the Lord
        Proprietary for the rebellion of two different owners, throw light upon events
        of considerable interest to students of the first two decades of Maryland history.
        The record includes a deposition by Captain Robert Vaughan, one of the first
        settlers and conspicuous in many ways in matters pertaining to the Province
        and more especially to Kent County, who gave evidence at the February, 1667/8,
        court in which he described the forfeiture in 1638 of Beaver Neck after the
        death of its owner, Thomas Smyth, executed for his part in the Claiborne
        “rebellion” on Kent Island. Vaughan deposed that he went with a party of men
        headed by Governor Leonard Calvert “to reduce the island of Kent . .
        being then in actual rebellion the said Governor att that time Caused One
        Thomas Smyth to be put to death One of the Inhabitants of the said Island
        and that after he was executed the said Governor caused this deponant to
        make Seizure of his Estate for the use of the Lord Proprietary which
        was accordingly done but within a few dayes after the said Governor Comanded
        this Deponant to deliver the aforesaid Estate unto Jane Smyth the Relict of
        the said Thomas Smyth into her possession for the proper use of two young
        female children of the aforesaid Thomas Smyth”. It would appear, however,
        that legal possession of Beaver Neck was not in this way restored to the
        Smyths, for a few years later it was in the possession of a certain John
        Gresham, who was later also guilty of rebellion and forfeited it for this
        reason. The date of this second forfeiture is not disclosed by the record,
        but it very possibly may have occurred at the time of the Ingle rebellion,
        1645-1646, as it was afterwards patented by special grant in January, 1651, to
        Francis Brooke. The record shows that in 1667 it was in the possession of
        John Woollcott who acquired his title from John Salter by the assignment of
        the Brooke patent. At the February, 1667/8 court there was heard the suit of
        John Anderton and his wife Gertrude to eject John Woollcott then in
        possession of the plantation. This Gertrude, the wife of Anderton, was the
        child of Thomas Smyth who had been executed in 1638 for his part in the
        Claiborne rebellion, and was one of the two daughters to whom Leonard
        Calvert had ordered possession be restored. The point was raised whether,
        or not, it was within the power of Governor Leonard Calvert to “give away to
        the said Relict [Mrs. Thomas Smyth] any land or estates which is once
        forfeited to the Lord Prorr . . . . wthout special Ordr or warrt from undr
        the hand and Seale of the said Lord Proprietary” (pp. 246, 249, 381). The
        court declared that whether or not it was in the power of the Governor to give
        away the land to the Smyths, it would still stand forfeited from John Gresham,
        who had a good title, for his part in the rebellion, which latter forfeiture
        was the ground for passing the land to Francis Brooke, by “his said speciall
        warrt as alsoe by his Grant in Confirmacon thereof under the Great Seale of
        this Province”. At a subsequent session held in December, 1668, the court
        declared that John Woollcott was the lawful owner of Beaver Neck, again
        rejecting the contention of Anderton that the plantation had been legally
        restored in 1638 to the ownership of his wife and her mother by Governor
        Leonard Calvert (pp. 246, 249, 381).