34 TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

1959-1960. Governor Tawes thus becomes the third governor to follow
the precedent established by the late Governor Herbert R. O'Conor in
1947. The gubernatorial papers reflect practically every facet of the
State government and it may well be that future historians will find
them to be the most useful collection in our custody. Dr. Harry W.
Kirwin made extensive use of the O'Conor Papers in our custody when
he was writing his recently published biography of Governor O'Conor
called, The Inevitable Success. We made these materials available to
Dr. Kirwin only after he had secured written permission from Mr.
O'Conor to use them.

In our last report, we listed a number of records found in the
attic of the Queen Anne's County Courthouse, which was then in
process of being renovated. A few more items were transferred last
year. Records of the Clerk of the Circuit Court included a volume
containing commissions of county officials, 1848-1876, and several
miscellaneous dockets. Among the county commissioners' records found
in the attic were three sets of Assessment Books; each set composed of
seven volumes, one for each district in the county. The books are not
dated, but from the evidence at hand it seems reasonable to surmise
that they fall near the end of the nineteenth century. Other items of
interest are the Lev)' Lists dating from 1868 to 1893 and the Rough
Minutes of the Levy Court for 1828.

At the request of the Register of Wills of Caroline County, we
extended our holdings of his records by transferring the volumes listed
below. The net result is that we now have all of the volume records
created by his office prior to 1850 and a few items beyond. An
anomalous volume found in this collection contains the records of the
Choptank Baseball Club for the years 1866-1873 and sheds some light
on the early history of the game in Maryland. The box scores found in
this volume record only that the batter scored a run or made an out.
The scores were astronomical by modern standards; in one nine-inning
game, Chesterfield defeated Choptank 51 to 41. Another game was
discontinued after three innings with the score 30 to 8. Perhaps the
players were too exhausted to continue, although it is possible that the
scorer simply became bored with his task.

The Anne Arundel County Marriage Records, 1865-1904, ac-
quired last year, give several details not found in the earlier marriage
records, such as age, color and residence of both parties. More im-