FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT

On February 15, 1949, Dr. J. Hall Pleasants retired as President of
the Board of the Peabody Institute. He had held this position since Feb-
ruary 15, 1937, when he succeeded General Lawrason Riggs. With the
exception of Dr. Bowman, Dr. Pleasants had served on the Commission
longer than any other member. In a sense, though, Dr. Pleasants' direction
of the affairs of the Hall of Records even antedates the formation of the
Commission in 1935. He was one of the first in the State to propose the
creation of a central archives, and when the late Judge Carroll T. Bond
was asked by Governor Ritchie, in 1930, to study the needs of the State in
the matter of record keeping, Judge Bond asked and received the assist-
ance of Dr. Pleasants. He was to continue to work for this project until
it was successfully accomplished. Dr. Pleasants has devoted a large part
of his life to the study of Maryland History; he has been active in the
affairs of the Maryland Historical Society; he was until recently editor of
the Archives of Maryland; and he is the author of numerous articles and
books dealing with Maryland. He has brought to his work as a member of
the Commission a thorough knowledge of Maryland records and record
keeping. Dr. Pleasants was succeeded by Mr. William L. Marbury.

On the last day of the fiscal year, June 30, 1949, Mr. John S. Kieffer
resigned as President of the St. John's College. He had served as a member
or the Hall of Records Commission since April 22, 1947, succeeding
Stringfellow Barr, who had left the Presidency of St. John's on December
31, 1946—in the interim, Mr. Kieffer had been acting President and, there-
fore, not a member of the Commission. During the short period in which
he had been associated with the Hall of Records, Mr. Kieffer had demon-
strated a sympathetic interest in its work, and he had been, above all, a
kind neighbor. No successor has been appointed; the Hall of Records
Commission is, therefore, at this writing composed of only six members.

One meeting of the Commission was held during the year, on Feb'
ruary 3, 1949. When the meeting was called to order by the Chairman,
all the members of the Commission were present with the exception of
Dr. Bronk who had informed the Archivist in advance that a prior
engagement would prevent his attendance.

The agenda of the meeting consisted for the most part of Hall of
Records business which was being considered by the General Assembly,
then in regular session. The Commission approved a measure which would
abandon the county abstract system and substitute microfilming of the
deeds, mortgages and releases of mortgages for deposit in the office of the