CHRONOLOGY. 113

1704. An Act was passed "To prevent the growth of popery."
1704. The first State House was entirely destroyed by fire.
1706. Relief was granted to the Quakers or Friends.
1706. The second State House was finished. On the north side of it

stood the Armory, which was also the ballroom.
1730. Baltimore City laid out.

1763. Mason and Dixon's line survey began.

1764. The log meeting-house, called Strawbridge Methodist Chapel, built
in Frederick County, the first Methodist Church in America.

1765. March 22—Passage of Stamp Act.

1766. March 18—Repeal of Stamp Act.

1767. May 13—Duty imposed on tea.
1769. June 22—Maryland Convention met.
1772. The second State House was torn down, and the foundation of
the present State House was laid by Governor Robert Eden.
The dome was added after the Revolution.
1774. The present State House completed.

1774. October 19—Burning of the "Peggy Stewart."

1775. July 26—Formation of "Association of Freemen."

1776. July 3—Maryland declared her independence.
1776.—November 10—First State Constitution adopted.

1777. March 21—Thomas Johnson, first State Governor, inaugurated.
1781. March 1—Maryland entered the Confederation.
1783. November 26—Continental Congress met in Annapolis.

1783. December 23—Washington resigned his military commission to

Congress in old Senate Chamber of Capitol, Annapolis.

1784. Saint John's College, Annapolis, chartered. The third oldest

college in the United States.

1784. January 14—Treaty of Peace with Great Britain ratified.

1785. December 11—First steamboat in the United States, invented by
James Rumsey, made trial trip on Potomac river, near
Shepherdstown.

1786. September 11—Convention of six States to inaugurate movement
for a precursor of the Federal Constitutional Convention met
in Annapolis.

1786. The Pope appointed Rev. John Carroll Apostolic Vicar, afterwards
Bishop of Baltimore. He became later the first Archbishop
of the United States.

1788. April 28—Maryland ratified Federal Constitution.

1791. Maryland ceded the District of Columbia to the United States.

1792. September—Rev. Thomas John Claggett consecrated the first

Bshop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland.
1810. Property qualification for Electors abolished.
1814. September 12—Battle of North Point.
1814. Bombardment of Fort McHenry, during which Francis Scott Key

wrote ' ' The Star-Spangled Banner, ' ' September 13.

1824. Religious teats for office removed.

1825. Jewish disabilities removed.
1828. July 4—Cornerstone of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad laid by

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

1838. Obed Hussey, of Baltimore, the inventor of the first reaper and
mower, cut the first field of grain ever harvested by a reaper
(180 acres of wheat, oats and timothy), on the farm of Gen.
Tench Tilghman, near Oxford, Talbot County, Md., under the
auspices of the Board of Agriculture for the Eastern Shore
of Maryland. Owen Dorsey, of Howard County, Md., invented
the first successful side-rake reaper attachment.

1837. Governor's Council abolished and the office of Secretary of State

created.

1841. The Eastern Shore Land Office abolished.