470                           The Counties op Maryland

side as was formerly added to Kent County doe still remaine and belong to
the said County as afore notwithstanding that part of the said proclamation
in wittnesse whereof I have hereunto sett my hand and caused the lesser
seale of this Province to be hereunto affixed the 19th day of June in the 42rh
yeare of the Dominion of Cecilius &c Annoq. Dmi 1674
To all whom these may Concerne."

The prime mover in the establishment of this county appears to have
been Augustine Herrman, perhaps the strongest man in the Province
at this time. Although subsequently a loyal adherent of Lord Balti-
more it was his discernment, while an ambassador from the Dutch of
Manhattan, that recognized the weak point in the Maryland charter by
which Delaware was ultimately lost to the Baltimores. The scheme for
the establishment of a new county in the northern part of the Province
was not new. Already the people had distinguished East Baltimore
County from the remainder on the Western Shore and by 1670 Herrman,
in his map, had not only named but indicated the bounds of the new
county which was not erected by proclamation until four years later.

There is no record showing the extent of that part " of the Easterne
side as was formerly added to Kent County." It probably included the
settlements on the north side of the Chester and along the Bay perhaps
as high as Worton Point. The line, if there ever was one, probably
divided the neck between the Sassafras and the Chester from west to
east.

The general act for dividing and regulating the several counties of
the Eastern Shore passed by the General Assembly of 1706²¹ finally
settled the line between Cecil and Kent as it is to-day by enacting that

" From and after the 1st of May 1707, Kent county shall begin at the south
point of Eastern neck, and from thence up Chesapeake bay to Sassafras
river, and up said river to the south end of the long Horse bridge lying over
the head of the said river, and from thence with a line drawn east by south,
to the exterior bounds of this province."

The eastern limits of Cecil County formed by the exterior limits of the
State have had an unusually interesting history which cannot be given in
full in the present paper.²² Each portion of the line has some historic

²¹ Ch. 3.

²² See report on the Resurvey of the Mason and Dixon Line, Md. Geol.
Survey, Repts., Vol. VII.