xlii                Introduction.

        499-500). This is the same tract for which the Charles County Court at its
        June, 1658, session, had ordered Nevill to give a new deed to Baker, as the
        original deed was “righttin with pouder inke” which had faded, and could “not
        now bee red” (Arch. Md. LIII; 5-6).

                        NEHEMIAH BLAKISTON

         The name of Nehemiah Blakiston (d. 1693), a younger son of John Blakiston
        of Newcastle, one of the regicide judges at the trial of Charles I, and a man
        later very prominent in Maryland affairs, occurs in the record in a curious way.
        At the March, 1674, court, Bridgett Legett, the widow of John Legett, the
        former Charles County minister, sued Thomas Lomax for 2000 pounds of
        tobacco, which she declared was due her for accommodations, meat, and drink
        which she had furnished to Nehemiah Blakiston for twenty months in the years
        1669 and 1670. Young Blakiston seems to have come to Maryland early in
        1668 with his uncle George Blakiston, sheriff of Durham, England, who settled
        in St. Mary's County. Nehemiah was probably, at the time of his arrival, in
        his early twenties. He later became colonel, Chief Justice of the Provincial
        Court, Chancellor, a member of the Council, and collector of customs for
        Potomac and Wicomico Rivers. Bridgett Legett's suit against Thomas Lomax
        came up at the March 1673/4, court. She declared that Lomax had failed to
        keep his promise to pay her for Blakiston's board what he had agreed. After it
        was shown that the latter had himself already paid her 800 pounds of tobacco,
        judgment was given against Lomax for the remaining 1200 pounds (pp.
        547-8). Blakiston may not yet have fully gotten on his feet in Maryland when
        this suit came up and may have been befriended by Lomax. The connection
        between them, if any, is not known. They both lived in St. Mary's County, A
        sketch of the Blakiston family will be found in the Maryland Historical Maga-
        zine (II, 56-58).
         Another suit in which both Nehemiah Blakiston and Mrs. John Legett ap-
        pear, came before the March, 1669/70, court. William Smoot, a large land-
        owner, who owned land which the Rev. John Legett had purchased, sued a
        certain Thomas Thorowgood, to whom he said he had given a boat, a cow,
        and a heifer, to teach a youth, William Hungerford, the son of Mrs. Legett,
        how “to write & Cast Accts.”, and that Thorowgood had gone away and failed
        to do so. The latter denied that he had made such a bargain, either with Smoot
        or with Mrs. Legett, the youth's mother, and declared that while he was away
        Mr. Blakiston had taught him; the court granted a nonsuit (p. 247; Arch. Md.
        LIII, 251, 599). This indicates that Mrs. Bridgett Legett was the widow of
        William Hungerford, Sr., when she married John Legett, and that she had a
        son William Hungerford, Jr.

                          JACOB LUMBROZO

         In the introduction to a previous volume of the Archives (LIII, 1-li), there
        has been sketched the unsavory record of the Portuguese Jew, Jacob (John)
        Lumbrozo of Charles County, who appears variously as physician, attorney,