82

SAMUEL STEVENS, Jr. ESQUIRE, GOVERNOR:

Dec. Ses. 1824

and to regulate their verdict thereby, except that no assessment
shall require any such owner to pay or contribute any thing to the
said company, where such benefit shall exceed in the estimate of
the jury the value and damages ascertained as aforesaid; and the
inquisition thereupon taken shall be signed by the sheriff and
some six or more of the jury, and returned by the sheriff to the
clerk of his county to be by him recorded; and upon every such
valuation the jury is hereby directed to describe the bounds of
the land by them valued, and the nature of the estate required by
the company in the same, and their valuation shall be conclusive
on all such persons; and shall be paid for by the president and
managers, to the owner of the land, or his or her legal representa-
tives, and on payment thereof or deposit of the same in either of
the banks in the city of Frederick, to the credit of the person or
persons entitled thereto, the said company shall be seized of such
land as of an absolute estate in perpetuity, or with such less quan-
tity and duration of interest or estate in the same, or subject to
such partial or temporary appropriation, use or occupation, as shall
be required and described as aforesaid, as if conveyed by the ow-
ner to them; and whenever in the construction of the said road, or
of any of the toll houses, bridges and culverts thereof, or works
of any other description whatsoever appurtenant thereto, it shall be
necessary to use earth, stone, gravel or sand, found on any of the
lands adjacent or near thereto, and the said president and mana-
gers or their agent cannot procure the same by contract of the pro-
prietor or owner on reasonable terms, or in case the owner should
be feme covert, or non compos, or under age, or out of the coun-
ty, the same proceedings in all respects shall be had as in the case
before mentioned of the assessment and condemnation of the land
required for the said road, or the works appurtenant thereto.

Proceedings
directed.

17. And be it enacted, That if the before mentioned capital shall
prove insufficient, it shall and may be lawful for the said company
from time to time, to increase the said capital by the addition of so
many whole shares as shall be judged necessary by the said stock-
holders or a majority of them present at any general meeting of
the said company, and the said president and managers, or a ma-
jority of them, are hereby empowered and required, after giving at
least thirty days notice thereof in such news papers as they may
think necessary, printed in Baltimore, Frederick, and at Harpers
Ferry, to open books at the before mentioned places, under the di-
rection of such persons as they may appoint for receiving and en-
tering such additional subscriptions, in which the stockholders of
the company for the time being, shall and are hereby declared to
have the preference of all others for the first ten days after the
said books shall be opened as aforesaid, of taking and subscribing
for so many whole shares as any of them shall choose, and the said
president and managers are hereby required to observe, in all other
respects the same rules therein as are by this act prescribed, for re-
ceiving and adjusting the first subscriptions, in like manner to re-
turn under the hands of a majority of them, an exact list of such
additional subscriptions with the sums subscribed, to the clerks as
aforesaid, to be by them recorded as aforesaid; and all holders of