On Sunday, November 12, Ed gave the annual M.L.A. Faculty lecture at Johns Hopkins University. His topic, The Idea of the City: From Tribal Village to Regional Metropolis, tied in with the course he is teaching this semester at Hopkins called The Idea of the City. About 150 people attended and it was very well received by the audience.
On Sunday, November 19, Ed spoke to the fall meeting of the Society of the Ark and the Dove at the Elkridge Club in Baltimore. His speech was called The Forgotten Mothers of Maryland and focused on the important roles played by Ann Mynne, Ann Arundell and Anne Wolsely, as well as Saint Cecilia, in the founding of the colony of Maryland. He also talked about the translation of the motto "Fatti maschii parole femine" and about the origins of the cross on the state seal and the flag. As a group devoted to early Maryland history, the Society was intensely interested in Ed's topic.
Both of these lectures were illustrated with scanned images projected from his computer using HTMLs.
CHATTEL RECORDS
The previous article described materials concerning African-Americans found in KENT COUNTY COURT (Chattel Records) 1750-1851 [MSA C1035] and 1750-1809 [MSA CM1256]. This one will discuss all the other information in the records. The series contains documents relating to personal property and served as vehicle for recording papers that could not be placed in other record books in the clerk's office. The entries are arranged chronologically by the date of recording. Each volume between 1764 and 1828 contains an index.
Bills of sale, mortgages, and deeds of trust comprise the largest category of documents. Some properties appear repeatedly throughout the records and others show up only periodically. Chattels sold and mortgaged throughout the time period of 1750 to 1851 include household goods, livestock, crops and produce, merchandise from general stores, books, vessels, farm tools and equipment, carpentry tools, blacksmith tools, and fishing gear. Between 1750 and 1775 some individuals were selling their servants, and in 1831 the unexpired term of an apprentice was sold. One household sale in 1829 included a medical library.
In 1753 Edward Scott, merchant, sold the following to Joseph Nicholson, merchant: "One Third part of the Ship Industry, together with one third ... of the Tobacco, Iron, Wallnut Plank, and Staves, now on board the said ship (as she lyes sunk off the Mouth of Worton) all which was purchased by me the said Edward Scott at a public Vendue" [A, p. 57]. Obviously the ship and its cargo held some salvage value. After 1831 many of the sales of vessels included enrollment bonds which were federally required for transporting cargo.
Other items being sold and mortgaged consisted of trade tools, such as surveying, 1764-1775, furniture making, 1798-1804, weaving, 1810-1832, shoemaking, 1814-1845, mill stones, 1823-1828, and cartwright, 1832-1837. Another category of income producing items included hides and skins, 1790-1831, medicines, 1829-1832, and construction materials - lumber, logs, and bricks, 1810-1851. Sometimes entire businesses changed hands or were used as collateral, such as blacksmith shops, 1814-1818, apothecaries, 1831-1833, a tavern, 1835, saw mills, 1832-1837, silkworms, 1837-1845, hat shops, 1845-1851, and newspapers and printing shops, 1831-1851. The newspapers included The Kent Examiner, Kent Inquirer, Kent Bugle, Weekly Herald, and Kent News.
During the years 1750 to 1814 individuals were selling judgments rendered in court cases. At other times bills of sale and mortgages referred to church pews, 1801-1818, shares of an estate, 1804-1851, guns and swords, 1811-1851, stage coaches, 1820-1823, jewelry, 1820-1823, and U.S. maps, 1829. An 1826 bill of sale concerned the right to construct, use, and sell a patented threshing machine and patented corn sheller [TW 3, pp.456-458]. Although mortgages occur earlier, the releases do not appear in the records until 1810; they continue through 1851.
Some documents in the chattel records relate to land, and are usually found in the (Land Records) series. There are at least two sales involving the same structures in Chestertown, 1775-1790, described as "...two wooden Houses or Buildings Situated in Chester Town aforesaid in part of a lot of Ground leased to the said Levinus [Clarkson] by Thomas Van Dyke Esq. late of the same Town deceased one of which Buildings is now in the occupation of Gabriel Kingsbury & Nicholas Kirby Cabinetmakers and the other in the occupation of the said John Crockett..." [AB 1, pp. 137-138]. Other land related sales include the lease of a grist mill on Morgans Creek in 1794, leases of farms, 1823-1828, rents from real estate, 1831, interest in a house and lot in Queen Anne's County, sales contracts, 1800-1809, deeds, 1810-1845, plat dividing a wood lot between heirs in 1825, and a mortgage in 1842. On one deed is a notation about it being recorded in the wrong place and a cross reference to a land record book. The names in two other deeds do not appear in the Kent County land record indexes.
The chattel records include powers of attorney whereby one person authorizes another to act on his/her behalf to collect debts, 1750-1851, to collect rents, 1798-1804, to recover money from estates, 1798-1818, to convey or lease land, 1810-1828, to negotiate or sell shares of estates, 1814-1845, to settle estates, 1832-1851, and to act as guardians, 1823-1828. In 1843 one man was given the power to sell policies for the Franklin Fire Insurance Company of Philadelphia.
Records pertaining to minors are found in the chattel records. They include valuations of land and buildings belonging to orphans, 1764-1788. Also recorded were apprenticeships of minors by trustees of the poor, judges of the county court, and parents, 1787-1834. An indenture of an adult was filed in 1785.
The chattel records contain instruments relating to personal and business finances, such as confessed judgments, 1775-1804, whereby debtors permit judgments to be entered by creditors, thus bypassing a court hearing. Other affairs of debtors are found in insolvency proceedings for the period 1783 to 1823. After that, until 1837, only the deeds of trust to trustees of insolvent debtors were recorded. The governor and council remitted a fine levied against an importer who failed to obtain a permit to sell merchandise; an extract of the minutes of the governor and council were filed in 1787.
Frequently appearing are records pertaining to government officials. There are commissions issued to justices and judges of the county court, 1788-1804, justices of the peace, 1794-1845, justices of the levy court, 1804-1837, coroners, 1810-1845, sheriffs, 1810-1837, clerks of the county court, 1814-1828, states attorneys, 1820-1823, and deputy states attorneys, 1823-1828. There are qualifications for deputy court clerks, 1783-1823, deputy register of wills, 1804, justices of the peace, 1804-1818, clerks of the county court, 1814-1823, and sheriffs, 1823-1828. Officials filing performance bonds included sheriffs, 1775-1851, tax collectors, 1775-1851, tobacco inspectors, 1783-1798, road supervisors, 1794-1845, road contractors, 1794-1828, coroners, 1798-1851, justices of the levy court, 1798-1828, registers of wills, 1798-1851, clerks of the county court, 1798-1845, standard keepers, 1798-1851, constables, 1798-1845, treasurers of the school fund, 1814-1837, and stewards of the almshouse, 1832-1845.
The Kent County chattel records also contain bonds for purposes other than officeholding. Some bonds concern actions by individuals, such as education of minors, 1790-1794, financial support of illegitimate children, 1775-1851, distribution of money to heirs, 1798-1818, and conveyance of land, 1804-1851. Others pertain to business and institutional activities, including the operation of Rock Hall ferry, 1783; operation of the Shrewsbury Church lottery, 1804-1809, and Washington College lottery, 1828; and construction of a bridge over Chester River at Chestertown, 1825.
Some people filed depositions and agreements so the documents could be a matter of public record. The depositions frequently were taken in reference to court cases, such as debts, 1775-1832; the ownership and use of livestock, 1783-1828; estate settlements, 1790-1818; boundaries, sales, and leases of land, 1801-1851; shares in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Co., 1807; murders, 1815-1823; use of bricks from Shrewsbury Church, 1816; and surveys of roads and rights of way, 1823-1828. One deposition, dated 1818 and describing an ear deformity, was filed to show the disfigurement was not the result of punishment for a crime. Agreements concerned distributions of estates and arbitrations to settle estates, 1775-1845, and a marriage contract, 1805.
A few corporate documents are found in the chattel records. Charters and charter amendments were filed by Hynsons Methodist Episcopal Chapel and Salems Chapel in 1807 and Wesleyan Chapel in 1830. Regulations of the Union Methodist Episcopal Chapel were recorded in 1835. In 1850 the Still Pond Division No. 83 of the Sons of Temperance of Maryland filed its constitution, by-laws, and rules of order.
Two records concern proceedings of commissioners appointed to lay out roads. The returns, including plats, related to a road from Rock Hall Road to a wharf at a shipyard on Langford Bay in 1825 and a road on Eastern Neck in 1827.
Individuals and government bodies filed a variety of certificates. Most involved stray livestock, 1775-1818, and the aggregate value of assessable property in Kent County and neighboring counties, 1794-1809. Other, one-time records concern an oath of fidelity and oath as justice of peace dated 1792 and the age of an individual recorded in 1835.
Other documents in the chattel records include coroners' inquests, 1775-1845, an oath to become a citizen of Maryland, 1788, letters of administration on an estate in Delaware, 1811, and papers to show Revolutionary soldiers were entitled to pensions, 1820-1826. Some people filed receipts for legacies, use of servants and slaves, rent of land from Washington College, and mortgage payments, 1788-1851.
In 1799 the General Assembly ratified a constitutional amendment requiring each county to be divided into election districts and passed a law authorizing each county court to appoint commissioners to lay out the districts. The amendment specified three districts for Kent County, and the law directed the commissioners to file their return with the county clerk who placed it in (Chattel Records) TW 1, pp. 221-223. The return contains descriptions of the boundaries of the three districts. The respective polling places included Simon Wickes' dwelling house on his farm adjoining St. Paul's Church for the First Election District, courthouse in Chestertown for the Second Election District, and Jesse Boyer's house in Georgetown Crossroads for the Third Election District. In 1810 the polling place for the First District was changed to the brick dwelling house of Joseph N. and Mary Gordon, near St. Paul's Church [BC 3, pp. 110-111].
The range of documents in the Kent County (Chattel Records) was much broader than expected, and not nearly as mundane as the series title implies. One volume, TW 1 covering 1798 to 1804, even yielded pieces of a quill pen.
REFERENCE REPORT
In October researchers were pursuing information about a wide variety of topics. One person wanted biographical data concerning Joshua Barney. Organizational studies included the Maryland Homeopathic Society and the Prisoners Aid Association of Maryland and its role in prison reform. Institutional histories involved Springfield Hospital and Eastern Shore Hospital Center.
Local topics concerned the Calvert County seal before 1954, Spa Creek in Anne Arundel County in the 1800s, Kent Island, industries in Cumberland, settlers of the Nanticoke River area, Buckingham House in Worcester County, and Crofton. Annapolis was the central feature for several projects including tradespeople in the colonial period, the town during the 1770s, racetracks during the colonial period, and Colonial Players, a 20th century theater group.
Maritime subjects pertained to lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay and shipbuilding. Studies of the Revolution concerned loyalists, Maryland Loyalist Battalion, General Assembly, Annapolis, and Chestertown tea party. Military topics included World War II and recruitment of the Potomac Home Brigade in the Civil War. Political subjects involved the Maryland judiciary in the 17th century, Anne Arundel County government from 1960 to 1965, and legislation regarding automobiles.
Colonial era studies concerned Catholicism in America, marriage strategies in the Chesapeake area, and crime in Maryland. Miscellaneous topics included residential architecture and eastern Native American women.
Circulation of materials in the search room rose 19.9% in October, 9839 items compared to 8207 in October 1994. Library usage jumped 68.1%, 1592 compared to 947. Film circulation climbed 19.8%, 5885 compared to 4913. Use of original records remained static, up .6%, 2362 compared to 2347.
The number of researchers in October in the search room changed very little from last year. The total number increased 1.2%, 1316 compared to 1300. Returning patrons rose 1.6%, 916 compared to 902. New researchers moved up only .5%, 400 compared to 398. On the 26th twenty-four members of the Ohio Genealogical Society visited the search room. A special thanks is extended to the staff and volunteers who helped that day with guiding seventy-two patrons, retrieving and reshelving records and films, and doing copy orders. The staff included Heather, Chris, Beverley, Don, Rona, and Julie. The volunteers who answered the plea for extra help were Joe, Jerry, Nancy, Rouse, Betty, and Walter.
Photoduplication orders from the search room decreased 5% in October, $2166.00 compared to $2280.45. Reader printer income rose 282.6%, $1496.00 compared to $391.00 in October 1994 when the first two new machines were installed at the end of the month.
As people increasingly call the Archives with their reference concerns the number of phone calls continues to rise, up 40.5% in October, 1252 compared to 891. The average number of calls per day has risen from 45 to 60 in one year.
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