MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY                          491

with the said County to the Extent of the Province; and that all the Land
lying to the Westward and Southward of the said Lines be included in the
new County aforesaid, and that after the Commencement of this Act the
said new County shall be called Frederick County....."

Up to this time there had been little or no conflict between the
settlements along the western border of Baltimore and the eastern side of
Prince George's County. With the rapid influx of settlers from Penn-
sylvania and their easterly extension from the Monocacy valley over
what is now western Carroll County, it became necessary to more sharply
define the western boundary of Baltimore County. It was therefore
enacted in 1750, Chapter 13, that the boundary between Frederick and
Baltimore counties should be as follows:

" Beginning at a spring called Parr's Spring, and running from thence
N. 35° E. to a bounded white oak standing on the west side of a waggon
road, called John Digges's road, about a mile above a place called Burnt-
house Woods, and running thence up the said road to a bounded white oak,
standing on the east side thereof, at the head of a draught of Sam's creek;
thence N. 55° B. to a Spanish oak standing on a ridge near William Robert's,
and opposite to the head of a branch called the Beaver-Dam, and running
thence N. 20° E. to the temporary line between the provinces of Maryland and
Pennsylvania, being near the head of a draught called Conewago, at a rocky
hill called Rattle Snake Hill;

The location of this eastern boundary of Frederick County cannot
be determined with entire accuracy but certain of the early maps of the
State show it approximately as represented on the accompanying plate
for this date. No change appears to have been made in this line until
the erection of Carroll County nearly a century later.

Up to the outbreak of the Eevolutionary War no further change was
made in the limits of Frederick County. Permanent settlements of Ger-
mans had in the meantime been made at Middletown, Taneytown, Sharps-
burg, Thurmont, Union Bridge, Emmitsburg and Woodsboro as well as
in the Hagerstown valley. At the Constitutional Convention of 1776 it
was decided to divide this widely extended and now more or less populous
Frederick County into three counties, Washington, Montgomery, and
Frederick, corresponding to the Upper, Lower, and Middle Districts of
Frederick County. The line of separation determined by this Conven-
tion was as follows: From the mouth of the Monocacy a straight line