| the Bay of Chesapeake, and the rivers Potomac and Pocomoke . . . ."'9 George Mason, the
principal author of Virginia's Constitution ,'° was one of the three Virginia commissioners
appointed.-'
Maryland responded on December 21. 1777, appointing Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer,
Thomas Stone and Samuel Chase as commissioners.22 (All three of these famous~3 gentlemen
later attended the Mt. Vernon conference in 1785). A committee of the Maryland legislature
prepared instructions for them.21
" Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia at 74 (1777)
(White Ed. 1827) [hereinafter "Journal of Virginia House of Delegates (1777)"].
-° Mason served as a Fairfax County delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses from
1758 until 1766, and in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1777 to 1778. He served in the
Virginia Constitutional Convention, drafting the Virginia Constitution of 1776. He later served
as a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. See generally I
Robert A. Rutland, The Papers of George Mason cxi-cxxvii (1970) [hereinafter "1 Rutland"].
'' Journal of Virginia House of Delegates (1777), supra note 19. at 74; 2 Rutland, supra
note 1, at 755 (Letter from Mason to Randolph of 10/19/1782). The other Virginia
commissioners were Thomas Ludwell Lee and James Henry. Journal of Virginia House of
Delegates (1777), supra note 19, at 74.
-' 2 J. Thomas Scharf, History ofMaryland 529 (1879) (1967 reprint) [hereinafter
"Scharf T
-' Samuel Chase was later appointed by George Washington as an associate Justice of this
Court, where he served from 1796 to 1811. See generally Jane Shaffer Elsmere, Justice Samuel
Chase (1980); James Haw, et al., Stormy Patriot: The Life of Samuel Chase (1980). Chase and
Thomas Stone signed the Declaration of Independence on behalf of Maryland, along with
William Paca and Charles Carroll of Carollton. Chase and Jenifer also attended the
Constitutional Convention on behalf of Maryland in 1787. See, e.g., 1 Rutland, supra note 20, at
x1ii, lxiv.
'4 Scharf, supra note 22, at 529-30.
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