COMMISSIONER OF THE LAND OFFICE— Annapolis.

(All Terms Expire 1920.)

Name. Postoffice.
Commissioner:
James S. Shepherd. ................................. .Cambridge

Chief Clerk:
Arthur Trader .......................................Baltimore

Assistant Clerks:

Richard Dnvall. ................................. .St. Margarets
Edward Phelps..........................................Laurel

Index Clerks:

Isaac O. Taylor. ...................................... .Hurlock
Dr. F. F. Hicks. .................................... .Cambridge
Wm. T. Andrews. ................................... .Cambridge
John P. Stafford. ..................................... .Cordova
Frank S. Revell. ....................................... .Marley
Chas. W. Brohawn. ..................................... .Salem

Stenographer:
Eva M. Clark. ...................................... .Annapolis

The Commissioner of the Land Office is appointed by the Governor,
with the consent of the Senate, to hold office during the term of the
Governor. The Commissioner appoints all officers in his office. (Consti-
tution, Art. 7, Sec. 4.)

The Land Office is the State Record Office, pertaining to boundaries
of land, and is the means by which discovered vacant land is passed by
the State to the individual, and covers the period from the earliest to the
present date. The Commissioner sits as a judge in contested disputes
over vacant land, and there is a right of appeal direct to the Court of
Appeals over his decision.

The duties of the Land Office, in regard to its clerical force, is to
keep the indexing, answer the various questions that are daily brought
to it by the mail, wait on the visiting public, and record the patents and
certificates that are returned on the different kinds of warrants executed
by the county surveyors throughout the State.

Questions relating to military service during the War of the American
Revolution.

Questions relating to wills, administration proceedings, inventories,
accounts and balances from the earliest to 1777.
Questions relating to confiscated British property.
Questions relating to Provincial Court, General Court, Court of
Chancery, debt books, rent rolls, insolvent proceedings, and extract of
deeds from the whole State.