1^6 DAVIS 



date December loth of that year there should be erected out of 

 Prince George county a new county named in honor of Prince 

 Frederick, son of George II, and " beginning at the lower side 

 of the mouth of Rock creek and thence by a straight line join- 

 ing to the east side of Seth Hyatt's plantation to the Patuxent 

 river." This new county embraced part of the present county 

 and original City of Washington and all that part of the present 

 City of Washington formerly known in law, and still colloquially 

 known as Georgetown ; the remainder of the present District 

 continuing in Prince George county. 



On September 6, 1776, the Revolutionary, or Provincial, Con- 

 vention of Maryland, erected out of Frederick county two other 

 counties named respectively after Generals Washington and 

 Montgomery, the boundaries of the latter beginning at the east 

 side of Rock Cr^ek and running thence with the Potomac River 

 to the mouth of the Monocacy, thence to Par spring and thence 

 with the line of the original Frederick county to the place of 

 beginning. This, it is seen, threw Georgetown and part of the 

 remainder of the present District into the new county of Mont- 

 gomery, and thus, at the time of the creation of the District of 

 Columbia the Maryland portion, that is to say all of the present 

 District, comprised parts of Prince George and Montgomery 

 counties. 



The interest of this seemingly unnecessary detail lies in the 

 fact that the beginnings of the local government of the Dis- 

 trict were in these respective counties, and the political devel- 

 opment of the District starts with the institutions in existence 

 "therein. I regret that time forbids my giving you a complete 

 picture of a Maryland county government in those early days, 

 but I must forego the temptation to do so. I must, however, 

 ask attention to some features of that government, for the reason 

 that those features survived in the District until within a very 

 few years, as we shall presently see. 



Maryland, as we all know, was settled in March, 1634, upon 

 the landing of the first emigrants at St. Mary. Those emi- 

 grants brought with them the principles of law and government 

 of the mother country and the charter of Maryland establish- 



