44 LAND OFFICE RECORDS

house until the new State House was built in 1697. After the State
House fire in 1704 the records saved were deposited in the Free School
of Annapolis, probably till 1706 when the new capitol was com-
pleted. ⁷⁰ In 1769 a more pretentious State House was built and here
the Land Office remained till in 1858 a record office to house the
Comptroller's office and the Land Office was authorized. ⁷¹ This
was situated at the northwest corner of Maryland Avenue and State
Circle. When the Court of Appeals building was erected in 1903,
the Land Office moved into offices there and remained there till
1935 when it came to its present office in the Hall of Records
building.

The records are listed in the following pages in the order in which
they appear on the Land Office shelves. The liber number in the
margin indicates the present title; the italicized name in the case
of the first two series represents the original liber title; in the
last three series, Rent Rolls, Debt Books and Proprietary Leases,
the italicized name represents the full title as printed on the present
binding.

PATENTS SERIES

Liber O—"Patent Records Original WC No. 2 1679 to 1681"; 416
numbered pages; index; title page: "WC No. 2 a Tran-
scribed Record"; ⁷² entries from 1679 to 1681; contains
warrants, proofs of rights, assignments, petitions, com-
missions, letters of Land Office officials. ⁷³

Liber 1—photocopy of a copy, made in 1724, of missing original
Proprietary Records Liber F (pp. 1-161) and part of
missing original Proprietary Records Liber B (pp. 162-
640).

Proprietary Records Liber F—176 numbered pages
according to the original pagination retained in the
copy; some 20 scattered pages of the original are not
included in the copy, possibly through loss or error

⁷⁰ Catalogue of Archival Material, Maryland Hall of Records, p. 117.

⁷¹ Ibid., p. 87.

⁷² This title page is on a sheet of paper completely different from the rest
of the book and may represent an error in binding as the book itself has
all the earmarks of being an original.

⁷³ Notation in faded ink at top of pages 84-85 reads: "Mr. Zakaria Cooke of
Corke Marchant is Debtor" and "Per Contra is Creditor" suggesting the
possibility that this book was originally Intended as a merchant's account
book.