xxxii Introduction.

The same session of the assembly that created Harford County also created
Caroline County, out of parts of Queen Anne's and Dorchester. An attempt
to join the upper parts of these two counties into a new one to be called Prince
William's County had been made in 1745. Both houses passed the act, but the
governor, bound by his instructions, could not sign it until the Lord Pro-
prietary's pleasure was known; and Prince William's County never was set
up (Archives, XXVIII, 46, 47, 56, 188-190). Now, thirty years later, peti-
tions from both counties asked the creation of a new one, but did not specify
the name. The petitions were granted and a committee made up of the dele-
gates of the two counties, with Paca and Johnson of Anne Arundel drafted
the act. In less than a month, and with little investigation, the necessary act
was passed into law in the usual manner, and Caroline County began to con-
duce greatly to the ease and convenience of its people. The boundaries as set
in the act gave Caroline County a good slice of what was not Maryland, but
Delaware. Cannon's Ferry, one of its boundary points, is several miles inside
the Delaware border. The act that set up Caroline differed in no essential
from the Harford County act, and there is the added similarity that Caroline,
like Harford, had trouble in locating the court house. The act provided, pre-
sumably in accordance with local wishes, that the county seat should be set up
on four acres of land at or near Pig Point on the east side of Choptank River,
and that its name should be Eden Town. Now the name is Denton. However,
in 1786, petitions and counter petitions prayed different locations, and so the
legislature suspended the erection of the buildings pending an election. The
election in 1789 settled it that the county seat should be at Pig Point as the
first law had decreed. But court was held at Melvill's or Melvin's Warehouse
until 1791 and the court house and jail were not finished until some time in

^T794-

The erection of a lighthouse on Cape Henry the Governor had been recom-
mending to the Assembly since 1758 (Archives, LVI, 54, in, 112, 125, 126).
The movement started with the Lords of Trade and Plantations, and their
pressure on the Lord Proprietary, though the idea was so natural as to seem
inevitable some time. The legislature put off the project then, and nothing
further was done on it by Maryland for ten years. In 1767, a letter from the
Virginia Lower House to the Maryland Lower House revived the matter and
enclosed a copy of the proposed act of Virginia (Archives, LXI, 334, 402).
Again Maryland took no action for five years. Governor Eden recommended
it again on October 2, and October 16, 1771 (Archives, LXIII, 4, 77, 107).
When he brought it up in his opening message on October 13, 1773, he added
the information that the Virginia Assembly had passed two acts for the build-
ing of the lighthouse, and this time the Maryland Lower House roused itself
to action. December 7, 1773 they considered that part of the Governor's speech
and ordered a bill for erecting a lighthouse on Cape Henry to be brought in
(p. 115). This was done in a week or so (p. 138), the bill was passed and it
passed the Upper House ((pp. 75, 147), and became law. Virginia had appro-
priated £6ooo current money of Virginia for a good and substantial lighthouse,