PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF 1774-1776

FIRST CONVENTION ²

June 22-25, 1774

	ST MARY'S	Francis Ware	John Ennalls	Richard Thomas
	Abraham Barnes	Josias Hawkins	Robert Harrison	Zadock Magruder (DNS)
	Henry Greenfield Sothoron	Joseph Hanson Harrison	Henry Hooper	William Baker (DNS)
	Jeremiah Jordan	Daniel Jenifer	Matthew Brown	Thomas Cramphin, Jr.
	KENT*	John Dent	CECIL	Allen Bowie
	Thomas Smyth	Thomas Stone	John Veazey, Jr.	Middle District:
	William Ringgold Joseph Nicholson, Jr.	Walter Hanson (DNS) Robert Townshend Hooe	William Ward Stephen Hyland	John Hanson, Jr. (DNS) Thomas Price
	Thomas Ringgold	(DNS)	PRINCE GEORGE'S	George Scott (DNS)
	Joseph Earle	BALTIMORE*	Robert Tyler	Benjamin Dulany (DNS)
	William Hall (DNS)	Charles Ridgely	Joseph Sim	George Murdock (DNS)
	ANNE ARUNDEL*	Thomas Cockey Deye	Joshua Beall	Philip Thomas
	Brice T. B. Worthington	Walter Tolley, Jr.	John Rogers	Alexander Contee Hanson
	Charles Carroll, Barrister	Robert Alexander	Addison Murdock	Baker Johnson
	John Hall	William Lux	William Bowie	Andrew Scott
	William Paca Samuel Chase Thomas Johnson	Samuel Purviance, Jr. George Risteau Charles Ridgely, of John	Benjamin Hall, of Francis Osborn Sprigg QUEEN ANNE'S	HARFORD* William West (DNS) Aquila Hall (DNS)
	Matthias Hammond Thomas Sprigg (DNS) Samuel Chew	(DNS) John Moale (DNS) Andrew Buchanan (DNS)	Turbutt Wright Richard Tilghman Earle Solomon Wright	Richard Dallam Thomas Bond, of Thomas John Love
	John Weems	TALBOT	John Brown	John Paca
	Thomas Dorsey	Matthew Tilghman,	Thomas Wright	Benedict Edward Hall
	Rezin Hammond John Hood, Jr. (DNS)	chairman Edward Lloyd	WORCESTER Peter Chaille	Benjamin Rumsey (DNS) Nathaniel Giles (DNS)
	CALVERT*	Nicholas Thomas	John Done	Jacob Bond
	Alexander Somerville	Robert Goldsborough IV	William Morris	CAROLINE*
	(DNS)	SOMERSET		Thomas White
	John Weems, Jr. William Lyles (DNS)	Peter Waters John Waters	FREDERICK* Lower District:	William Richardson Isaac Bradley
	Edward Reynolds	George Dashiell	Henry Griffith	Nathaniel Potter
	Benjamin Mackall IV Richard Parran (DNS)	DORCHESTER Robert Goldsborough	Thomas Sprigg Wooton Nathan Magruder (DNS) Evan Thomas	Thomas Goldsborough Benson Stainton (DNS)
	CHARLES' William Smallwood	William Ennalls Henry Steele	Richard Brooke

¹ The Proprietary Assembly that adjourned on April 19, 1774, was the last legislative session of the proprietary govern-
ment. After that, Governor Eden prorogued the Assembly regularly until he ordered it dissolved on June 12, 1776, and
called for a new election.

During the years 1774-1776, the powers of government increasingly came to be exercised by the extra-legal assem-
blies. In all there were nine meetings of six appointed or duly elected provincial conventions. Apparently neither con-
temporaries nor subsequent publishers of the extant proceedings were certain how to differentiate separately elected
and self-contained conventions from those sessions that were merely a continuation of an adjourned meeting. This con-
fusion partly results from the ambiguity of the surviving journals. On July 3, 1776, the penultimate Convention decreed
that its own dissolution date would be August 1, 1776. The last entry on July 6, however, recorded that "the conven-
tion adjourns till Thursday the first day of August next......" For convenience each session is designated numerically as
a distinct convention, although there were elections only to what are here called the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and
ninth conventions.

The First Convention was an informal meeting of ninety-two delegates from the counties charged with formulating
Maryland's response to the Boston Port Act. As the revolutionary movement grew, the conventions evolved into for-
mal assemblies of representatives elected in much the same manner as the proprietary Lower House. These conventions
were concerned with financial, legal, and military matters and gradually became the de facto, if not de jure, govern-
ment.

Governor Eden's authority was acknowledged until June 23, 1776, when he boarded a British ship to return to En-
gland. Two days later the Eighth Convention resolved that his call for the election of a new proprietary assembly would
not be obeyed and the proprietor's control of Maryland was officially denied.

² Formal appointments survive for only those counties marked with an asterisk; the lists of delegates for the other
counties are based on attendance at the Convention.

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