534                           THE COUNTIES OF MARYLAND

QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY.

Queen Anne's County, although not erected until 1706, includes
within its borders the earliest settlement of Europeans along the Eastern
Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The early trading post of William Clai-
borne was erected on Kent Island in 1631, and settlements were made on
the mainland about. 1647, a few years prior to the agreement with the
Indians made in the summer of 1652, which allowed the establishment
of white settlements on either side of Chesapeake Bay as far south as
the Choptank and Patuxent rivers.

The early settlements of Queen Anne's County were included first in
Kent and subsequently in Talbot counties until the Maryland inhabi-
tants had been so thoroughly distributed over the entire Eastern Shore
as to make it advisable to take up with more care the division of the
territory into counties. After several petitions had been presented to the
Assembly of 1704 and referred to the next succeeding session the Gen-
eral Assembly of 1706 enacted a law which was approved April 18, 1706,
entitled:

" An Act for the dividing and regulating several counties on the eastern
shore of this province, and constituting a county, by the name of Queen
Anne's County, within the same province." ³¹

When this law was enacted there had been already erected on the
Eastern Shore the counties of Cecil, Kent, Talbot, Dorchester, and
Somerset, the latter two embraced all the territory south of the Chop-
tank while the first four covered the territory north of this river. By the
law of 1706 the region between the Sassafras on the north and the
Choptank on the south was divided into three counties, the third being the
new county of Queen Anne's. According to the law

" From and after the said 1st of May, 1707, the Island called Kent Island,
and all of the land on the south side of Chester river, to a branch called
Sewell's branch the said branch to the head thereof, and from thence with
an east line to the extent of this province, and bounded on the south with
Talbot county, to Tuckahoe bridge and from thence with Tuckahoe creek
and Choptank river to the mouth of a branch falling into the said river, called

³¹ Chapter 3 of the Laws of 1706.