1845.

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

CHAP. 327.

tract or part of a tract of land called Knowess Range, to
them and their heirs forever, and it is also represented
that there was at the time of the execution of said will,
no law existing in the said province of Maryland autho-
rising the manumission of slaves by last will and testa-
ment, and it is further represented that the said devisees
are all dead and have left but two heirs, and that one of
the said heirs, viz; Rebecca Oliver, now Rebecca Haw-
kins, joined in a deed with her husband David Hawkins,
to Thomas Walker, bearing date July the sixth, eighteen
hundred and thirty-nine, duly acknowledged and record-
ed in the clerks office of Queen Anne's county, in one of
the land record books for said county, but said deed did
not owing to the invalidity of the will under which the
parties, grantors derived their light, convey to the said
Thomas Walker such a title as is desirable — therefore,

Will made va-
lid.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of
Maryland, That the will of the said John Gibb, be and
the same is hereby declared to be valid; and that the ne-
groes therein mentioned, or such of their children as may
be alive at the time of the passage of this act, are decla-
red to be free.

Devisees put
into possession.

SEC. 2. And be it enacted, That the devisees of John
Gibb, or any of them, or any of their heirs that may be
alive at the time of the passage of this act, be and they
are hereby put in entire possession of the land devised
them by said will unless they or any of them have sold
their interest in said land.

Good and suf-
ficient deed.

SEC. 3. And be it enacted, That the deed made by
David Hawkins and Rebecca Hawkins, his wife, to
Thomas Walker, for their portion of the land which they
held under the will of the late John Gibb, be and the
same is hereby declared to be a good and sufficient deed
to convey to the said Thomas Walker, all the right, title
or interest that the said David Hawkins and Rebecca
Hawkins, his wile, may have had or may have in con-
sequence of the passage of this act, in said lands, and
that the title of the State in said lands, whatsoever it is,
be and the same is hereby relinquished.