SAMUEL SPRIGG, ESQ. GOVERNOR.

may appeal to the judges of the county court of Washington county,
whose decision shall be final; and upon the said president and di-
rectors paying to said proprietor or proprietors the sum so assessed,

Dec. Ses. 1821.

the land on which said bridge may be abutted, and the privilege
aforesaid, shall be forever vested in said company: Provided al-
ways, that if the said bridge shall be abutted on the land of any
person or persons now owning a ferry over the river Potomac, then
the value of such ferry shall be assessed to such person or persons
in the damages aforesaid: And provided also, that the damages as-
sessed shall be fully paid to the party entitled to receive the same,
before the said company shall be entitled to exercise any act of pos-
session or ownership on the land intended for the said abutment.

Proviso.

3. And be it enacted, That all the rights and privileges of the
stock-holders in said company, shall forever be free and common to
the citizens of Maryland and Virginia, and that the proprietor or
proprietors of the ferry and ferry landing at Shepherd's town,

shall be permitted to subscribe on the day the books are first open-
ed, the whole amount of the sum they may be entitled to receive as
a compensation for their property taken by the company aforesaid,
or any part thereof, any thing in this act contained to the contrary
nothwithstanding.

Rights and
privileges to
be in common
--proprietor of
land may sub-
scribe.

CHAPTER 226.

An act relating to the acknowledgments and effect of deeds made by
corporate bodies.
Sec. 1. Be it en acted By the General Assembly of Maryland,
That every deed which shall hereafter be made by any corporate
body, for the conveyance, alienation, mortgage, release, assignment,
transfer or sale, of any lands, tenements, goods, chattels, rights,
claims or effects within this state, or of any estate, claim or interest
therein, may be acknowledged before the person or persons author-
ised by law to take the acknowledgments of similar deeds made
by individuals, by attorney constituted and authorised by a clause
in such deed, or by letter of attorney under the seal of such corpo-
rate body; and every such deed which shall hereafter be so acknow-
ledged and recorded according to law, shall be deemed and con-
strued in law and in equity as valid and effectual, and of as much
force in conveying, mortgaging, selling, assigning, transferring and
releasing any estate, right, title, interest or claim therein expressed,
or thereby intended to be conveyed, aliened, mortgaged, sold, as-
signed, transferred or released, as if such deed had been or were
duly executed and acknowledged by any individual citizen of this
state having or being seized, possed or entitled to the same estate,
right, interest or claim as such corporate body in and to such
lands, tenements, goods, chattels, rights, claims or effects, and re-
corded agreeably to law.

Passed Feb. 22
1822.
How to be
acknowledged.

2. And be it enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for all
incorporated bodies in this state, which are not by law authorised
to make a common seal, to make one and to use the same in all
acts where it is necessary by law to use the same.

Seal.