518                           THE COUNTIES OF MARYLAND

MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

Montgomery County has maintained with almost no variation the
boundaries assigned to it at the time of its erection by the Constitutional
Convention in 1776. Prior to that time its territory constituted the
southeastern portion of Frederick County and had been settled to a
greater or less extent along the valleys of the Potomac and Patuxent
rivers and in the fertile upland in the vicinity of Sandy Spring. Nearly
a century before its erection as a distinct county, settlements had been
made in the vicinity of Georgetown along Bock Creek, and somewhat
later in the neighborhood of Spencerville and along Sligo Creek.

According to the acts of the Convention of 1776 on the sixth of
September of that year it was decided that

Beginning at the east side of the mouth of Rock creek on Potomac river,
and running with the said river to the mouth of Monocacy, then with a
straight line to Par's Spring, from thence with the lines of the county to the
beginning, shall be and is hereby erected into a new county by the name of
Montgomery county.

The present lines were inherited, for the most part, from the earlier
lines of Frederick County. It is, perhaps, of interest to recall in this
connection the origin of some of the points along the present boundary
and how they were originally chosen. Parrs Spring, as the head of the
Patuxent River, had for many years been one of the prominent points
in defining county boundaries. As early as 1654, when Calvert County
was erected from a pre-existent Charles County the boundary line was
said to extend to the head of Patuxent River, which was then the north-
erly bound of St. Mary's County. At that time the head of Patuxent
River, however, was not known to be at Parrs Spring but was thought
to exist in the vicinity of Laurel. The term was employed later in 1698
in defining the boundary line between Baltimore and Anne Arundel
counties, although it is doubtful whether the legislators intended to have
the line go north of Laurel. By 1748, when Frederick County was
erected, it is probable that the source of the Patuxent was approximately,
if not exactly, known. It was at this time also that the line now form-
ing the southeastern boundary of Montgomery County was determined.
This is the northern end of a straight line passing from the lower side of