30 court of appeals of maryland

The first term of court after the proceedings in
1694, and after the "April Court next," designated
in the order of the Council on October 17, 1694,
was the May Term, 1695; and, for that there as-
sembled in Annapolis the new capital, on May
16, 1695, His Excellency Francis Nicholson,
Col. George Robotham, Thomas Tench, Esq., Col.
Charles Hutchins, and Col. David Brown. No
business was transacted on that day, but on the
next, May 17, 1695, with a larger court present,
Henry Denton was formally sworn in as clerk, and
the first case was taken up.

In what building the court held this first session,
has not been learned. The first session of the Gen-
eral Assembly in Annapolis, in 1695, seems to have
been held in the house of Major Edward Dorsey,
on Prince George Street,¹³ and there is, perhaps,
some likelihood that the judicial session of the
Council was held in the same house; but other
houses were used for the public business. A Court
of Delegates was held on October 12, 1695, in the
house of Mrs. Mary Van Swearingen; and on Oc-
tober 21 and 22, 1697, the sessions of the Court
of Appeals were held in the house of the honorable
Sir Thomas Lawrence, Bart, Secretary—so say the
minutes. The small brick building still standing
on the eastern slope of the State House Circle ap-
pears to have been used at times as a council cham-
ber until the first State House was finished in 1697.
And that State House, or "Stadt House", had a
great room below stairs for courts and assemblies
to sit in; one of two rooms on the left in the upper

13. Richardson, Side Lights on Maryland History, II, 89.
Ridgely, Annals of Annapolis, 106.