ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 5

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

To THE HONORABLE

THE HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Gentlemen:

The deposit by the Librarian of Congress of the valuable
fugitive archives of the State of Maryland brought to a close a
thirty-five year effort on the part of the Archivists of Maryland
and the Hall of Records Commission to recover these valuable
materials from the Peter Force Collection at the Library of
Congress. During the same period the Hall of Records has re-
ceived the older records from every state agency and from all
the counties of Maryland. There is only one collection still at
large, the very rich state archives now at the Maryland His-
torical Society.

The Society became the de facto custodian of the Archives of
the State after 1847 (Resolution No. 27, Acts of 1846) when a
large deposit of records by the Governor in the Maryland His-
torical Society was authorized. There was also deposited "a
complete copy of the laws of this State, so far as the same are
published, and may be found in the possession of the State, ......."
In subsequent years additional deposits were made by the State
at the Historical Society. Finally, in 1882 the society became the
archival agency of the state de jure when (Chapter 138) an Act
was passed "to provide for the preservation, arrangement, pub-
lication and sale of ancient documents pertaining to Maryland,
Provided that any or all of said papers may be recalled, and
shall be returned to the State on its demand therefor." For all
this the Society was given an annual stipend of $2,000. This ap-
propriation was used for the publication of the enormous col-
lection — now 71 volumes — of letter press volumes of the early
records of Maryland. The amount of the appropriation has been
raised from time to time reaching $30,500 for fiscal year 1972.

Equally as important as the deposits of the State, have been
the acquisition of related records given, bequeathed or deposited
because of the fact that the Society was considered to be the
Archival Agency of the State until 1935 (Ch. 18) when the Hall
of Records was established. Chief among these related accessions
has been the Scharf Collection which was first given by J. Thomas