xl Introduction.

construction of new churches and one with parish boundaries. St. Luke's
Parish, in Queen Anne's County, was one of the two places where the building
of a new chapel, or church, was authorized (pp. 128-129). The other was
to be built in Christ Church Parish, Calvert County (pp. 164-165). Soon after
the enabling act was passed regarding the parish in Calvert County a notice
was published that any one who desired to contract for building the church
should submit his plans on March 8, 1770. The dimensions of the new struc-
ture were to be sixty by forty feet (Maryland Gazette, Feb. i, 1770). The local
act in regard to parish boundaries referred to those between the three parishes
of St. Luke's, Christ Church, and St. John's, all in Queen Anne's County, and

St. Paul's Parish, situated partly in Queen Anne's and partly in Talbot County
(pp. 120-133).

A petition for the construction of a new chapel in Prince George's Parish,
located partly in Frederick and partly in Prince George's County, was re-
jected at this session of the Assembly. It appears that at a vestry meeting in
Prince George's Parish on February 21, 1769, it was decided to ask the next
General Assembly for an act to impower the justices of the two counties in
which the parish was situated to levy on the taxable persons in the parish
192,000 pounds of tobacco in order to build a new brick church where the old
one then stood (see Appendix VI). A notice giving this resolution of the
vestry was published (Maryland Gazette, Mar. 9, 1769).

At subsequent meetings of the same vestry on May 9 and June 13 it was the
opinion of those present that the amount of the assessment requested should
be reduced from 192,000 pounds of tobacco to 128,000 pounds (Appendix VI).
A few days after the General Assembly convened on November 17, 1769, a
petition asking this amount to build a new church was presented. The members
of the Lower House would not favorably consider the same "for want of due
Notice agreeable to the Resolve of this House" (pp. 7, 42, 66). Better luck
awaited the same petition when it was again introduced during the Assembly
which met from October 2 to November 30, 1771. However, only 96,000
pounds of tobacco were allowed for the construction of the church which
was just half the sum originally desired (Green's Laws of Maryland, 1771,
chap. III).

Of the other two local acts passed by the Assembly in 1769, one referred
to education in Frederick County and the other to an election in Baltimore
County. The former act appropriated ground to the use of a public school in
Frederick Town (pp. 153-154). Prior to the passage of this law, a notice ap-
peared in the Maryland Gazette stating that as the funds which had been allowed
by the General Assembly were insufficient to build a school it was proposed
to raise the balance of the money by a lottery (Maryland Gazette, Nov. 2, 1769).
Since smallpox had broken out in Baltimore Town, a local act was passed mak-
ing it legal for inhabitants of Baltimore County to vote elsewhere (pp. 126-
127). By the provisions of a law passed the previous year elections had to be
held in Baltimore Town (Arch. Md. LXI, xlix, Hi, Ixxxvi-xc, 442-445). By
not having to vote in Baltimore Town, freeholders would not run the risk of
catching the disease. This new local act has been previously discussed in another
connection (see introduction, pp. xxxii-xxxiv).