OF COLONIAL MARYLAND 43

recorded.... Resolved.... that the Register of the Land Office for
the Western Shore be.... authorized.... to record said leases in a
good and sufficient bound book for that purpose.... '' George O.
Brewer was Clerk of the Assembly at this time and, as we have seen,
it was he who transcribed the leases as had been authorized. Whether
some of the leases were loose papers and some of them already
recorded in books as Resolution No. 21 for 1828 seems to indicate,
is probably undeterminable, since only Brewer's three-volume trans-
cription appears to be extant.

The date of accession of the Debt Books and Rent Rolls into the
Land Office is not easily ascertained. In 1805 there were two reso-
lutions requiring the Clerk of the Council to examine the debt
books and complete the indexes, giving the impression that they
were then in his care. Baity, however, writing in 1808 says, "The
register of the land office for the western shore has the care and
custody of the records and papers arising under the provincial
government, not expressly by any law, passed since the revolution,
for that of 1781, gives to the registers the charge only of the short
extracts of certificates and grants therein mentioned; but, because
the records at large, which have been claimed and kept by the
state, naturally fell into the hands of that officer and were indeed,
placed in his charge by the governor and council when they were
surrendered by the proprietary's officers. "⁶⁸ In 1819, at any rate,
debt books for both shores are acknowledged to be in the Land Office,
the Western Shore debt books having just recently been deposited
there by the Clerk of the Council. ⁶⁹ No such exact data can be
given as to when and whence the Rent Rolls came to the Land Office.
A resolution of 1815 authorized the Register of the Land Office to
transcribe certain records including Anne Arundel County Rent
Roll No. 1, so it is probable all the rent rolls were by then in the
custody of the Land Office. One exception to this, of course, is
Rent Roll Liber O, which was photocopied from Maryland Historical
Society originals and added to the Rent Rolls series by the present
Chief Clerk of the Land Office, Mr. Arthur Trader.

The Land Office itself was housed in the State House at St.
Mary's till 1694 when the capital was moved to Annapolis. Then it
took up temporary residence in the Anne Arundel County Court-

⁶⁸ Kilty. PP. 321-2.

⁶⁹ Recorded Laws Liber T. H. No. 6, pp. 449-50.