MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY                          543

portion of the proclamation, dated August 22, 1666, dealing with the
limits of the county, runs as follows:

" Caecilius Absolute lord .... for the ease & benifitt of the people of this
or pvirice & for the Speedy & more exact Admncon of Justice have erected &
doe by theis pnts erect all tht Tract of land wthin this our province of Mary-
land bounded on the South with a line drawne from Wattkins point (being
the North point of tht bay into wch the River Wighco formrly called Wighco-
comoco afterwards Pocomoke & now Wighcocomoco againe doth fall ex-
clusively) to the Ocean on the East. Nantecoke river on the North & the
Sound of Chesipiake bay on the West into a County by the name of Som-
mersett County in honor to our Deare Sister the lady Mary Somersett....."

The erection of this county was but one of many steps taken by the
proprietor to stimulate settlement along that portion of his territory on
the Eastern Shore which was gradually becoming occupied by people
from the Delaware side who held patents from representatives of the
Duke of York. On October 22, 1669, the rent of any who should settle
on the seaboard side was reduced to a shilling for each fifty acres; at
the same time it was also ordered in accordance with the instructions
from the lord proprietor under date of 28th of July, 1669,

" that from the Whore kill to the degree of forty Northerly Latitude be
erected into a County and called by the Name of Durham County and that
from the Hore kill to Mount Scarborough be likewise erected into a County
& called as the Lord Proprietary shall hereafter direct" (Md. Arch., 5: 57).

These counties were evidently intended to include part of what had but.
a few years before been assigned to Somerset County and the dividing
line, determined in great measure by the area settled, would probably
have followed along the divide of the Delaware-Chesapeake watershed.
The records, however, of these counties show that they never existed
except in name. Officers, it is true, were appointed and certain land
records were kept but the title to the territory was in dispute, the
inhabitants in great part of different stock and nationality from that of
St. Mary's, and little authority was ever exercised by the Maryland
government in these temporary counties. If Durham and its companion
county had been erected permanently the eastern boundary of Som-
erset County would have been changed to approximately as it was in
1742 when the Worcester County of to-day was erected.