MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY                          457

tailment in its territorial limits than any county erected during the
seventeenth century.

CALVERT COUNTY ELECTION DISTRICTS.

1798  Ch. 115. County divided into 3 election districts.

1799  Ch. 48. Confirms Acts of 1798 Ch. 115.

1799 Ch. 50. Commissioners appointed for laying out districts.
1872 Ch. 77. County Commissioners authorized to redistrict the county or
increase the election precincts.

CAROLINE COUNTY.

Caroline County, although erected prior to the Eevolutionary War,
was one of the later counties on the Eastern Shore in its settlement.
Early pioneers had worked their way up the shores of the Choptank and
Tuckahoe Creek many years before it was deemed necessary to have a
new county. The uncertainty as to the eastern boundary of the Province,
and the consequent doubt of the validity of titles granted, restrained the
inhabitants from devoting themselves to the clearing and improving of
tracts within the disputed territory. By 1750, however, the boundary
line between the province of Maryland and the Three Lower Counties
on Delaware had been settled at least on paper, and attempts had been
made to -start the southern transpeninsular line which should ulti-
mately determine the boundary. Ten years later a broad vista was cut
through the forests along the probable location of the boundary and
settlements were encouraged by the increased security felt in the titles
to the grants which were offered by the Maryland proprietary.

During the session of 1773 the question of erecting a new county
for facilitating the transaction of business in this newly-opened country
was considered and the General Assembly on November 16 of that year
passed the following Act:

" Whereas a considerable body of the inhabitants of Dorchester and Queen
Anne's counties, by their petition to this general assembly, have prayed, that
an act may be passed for a division of the said counties, and for erecting a
new one out of parts thereof: And whereas it appears to this general
assembly, that the erecting of a new county out of such parts of Dorchester
and Queen-Anne's counties will conduce greatly to the ease and convenience
of the people thereof;