Maryland Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

Maryland's law was English. The colony began under a charter granted to Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, in 1632, and the first colonists landed at St. Mary's City in March 1634. English common law — judge-made law handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature — governed from the start, supplemented by acts of the provincial Assembly. After independence the state kept it deliberately: the Declaration of Rights entitles the inhabitants of Maryland to the common law of England and to those English statutes that existed on 4 July 1776 and were then in use.¹ Which English statutes survived that test is a real question in Maryland practice, and Chancellor William Kilty's report on the subject, printed in 1811, is the standard authority.²

Maryland was a common-law state. Husband and wife each owned their own property, and marriage created no shared marital estate.

Probate belonged to the Orphans' Court and the Register of Wills, county by county. The system took its lasting shape from one act of 1798, which pulled wills, executors, administrators, guardians, and the estates of orphans into a single scheme.³ Because that act made the register keep the papers and the court supervise the accounting, one Maryland estate ordinarily leaves a chain of county records rather than a single document.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one

Full legal age was 21 for a man and for a woman alike. Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in legal language, even a 20-year-old. An infant could avoid his own contracts, and his land passed only through a guardian and a court order.⁴ Twenty-one governed through 1950. The age dropped to 18 in 1973, well after it.

When a woman reached full age at eighteen

A great many Maryland statutes fixed 21 for a male and 18 for a female, from the nineteenth-century codes into the 1940s. A woman could dispose of land by will at 18. Her guardianship ended at 18. A legacy left to her payable at "full, mature, or lawful age" fell due at 18, or on her marriage if she married earlier.⁵

In the colonial period the figure was lower still. The act of 1715 that governed orphans' estates declared that every female orphan was of full age to receive her estate at 16, or on the day of her marriage, whichever came first.⁶ So for an eighteenth-century Maryland girl, look for her estate to be handed over at 16. The act of 1798 carried 16 forward for guardianship, appointing to 21 for a male and to 16, or marriage, for a female, while setting 18 as the age at which a woman could dispose of land by will. By the Code of 1860 the guardianship figure had risen to 18. From then through 1950 the codes print 21 and 18.⁷

Eighteen governed those particular records. Twenty-one remained the age of full contractual capacity. An unmarried woman between 18 and 21 could put her property into a deed of trust only on the approval of an equity court — the court that handled trusts — granted on her own petition.⁸ The practical rule for a researcher: for wills, guardianship, and legacies, look for 18 in a woman's record and 21 in a man's.

A minor's capacity

A minor could own property outright. What the law restrained was the power to dispose of it. A minor's deed was voidable — good until he chose to undo it, which he could do on reaching majority — so a child's land was ordinarily sold for him by a guardian under an order of the Orphans' Court.⁹

Marriage

A valid marriage required a religious ceremony

A valid Maryland marriage required a religious ceremony. The Court of Appeals put it squarely in 1872: no marriage in Maryland is valid without some sort of religious ceremony.¹⁰ The rule was old, and it held through 1950.

Two consequences follow, and they point in opposite directions. Marriage came from the ceremony, so Maryland did not recognize common-law marriage: a couple who simply lived together as husband and wife remained single in law, however long they lived as one and whatever their neighbors believed, and they leave no marriage record. The paperwork was another matter: a marriage celebrated without a license stood, and the penalty fell on the officiant.¹¹ A marriage performed by a minister without a license is a real marriage, and its children are legitimate.

Quakers were expressly accommodated. A couple could marry by the practice of the Society of Friends. They signed a certificate that they had agreed to take each other as husband and wife, attested by twelve witnesses. It had to be recorded within sixty days, either in the society's own records or in a court of record.¹² A Quaker marriage certificate with a dozen names on it is a genealogical windfall, and it is where the marriage record lives.

How a marriage was announced or licensed

The colonial rule was publication of the banns — the public announcement of an intended marriage, read out in church. An act of 1717 required marriages to be published and set penalties on those who evaded it, including couples who got themselves married in a neighboring colony.¹³ An act of 1777 then put the marriage license alongside publication, and the licensing provisions ran forward from it through every later code.¹⁴ A couple either took out a license from the clerk of the circuit court for the county — the Court of Common Pleas in Baltimore City — or had their names published in a church on three several Sundays.

The 1886 licensing act is the one to remember, because it converted a bare license into a genuine record of the couple.¹⁶ From then on the clerk had to keep a Marriage License Book recording every item testified to, with both parties' names indexed, and noting when the officiant's certificate came back and who performed the ceremony.¹⁷ The officiant returned one certificate to the clerk within thirty days and handed the other to the couple.¹⁸ The forty-eight-hour waiting period arrived in 1937 and was confirmed by the voters at the November 1938 election.¹⁹

Who was old enough to marry

Into the twentieth century the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12. Maryland never enacted an age of its own before 1939, so the English rule it received at settlement stood.²⁰

A young person's freedom to marry was checked from the very beginning. From 1640 the province made the bride and groom swear before the county court that they were not apprenticed and not under the governance of a parent or guardian. The licensing act of 1886 turned that into paperwork: the applicant swore to his or her age, and where a party was under age the clerk took the written consent of a parent or guardian. The ages that called for consent were males under 21 and females under 16. An amending act of 1920 raised the female age to 18, and the act of 1939 replaced the whole scheme.²¹

What that leaves behind is the useful part. From 1886 the clerk's application book records the consent, and it names the consenting parent or guardian — often the only place a parent of a young Maryland bride appears in the marriage record at all.

A statutory minimum age arrived in 1939. It became unlawful for a female under 16 or a male under 18 to marry, or for a parent to permit it — with one exception, on the certificate of a licensed physician presented with the license application that the girl was pregnant. Above those ages, a female aged 16 to 18, or any male under 21, needed the assent of a parent or guardian, given in person or by signed affidavit swearing to the young person's age.²² So from 1939 a Maryland license file for a young couple should hold a parent's affidavit, and sometimes a doctor's certificate.

Marriages the law forbade

Marriage within the prohibited degrees of kindred or affinity — too closely related by blood, or by marriage — was void — treated in law as though it had never happened — and the code printed the full table of forbidden relations for a man and for a woman.²³ Uncle and niece were an odd case: such a marriage was voidable rather than void, and an act of 1860 confirmed those already celebrated.²⁴ A second marriage while the first subsisted was void, and either the circuit court on a party's petition or the criminal court on indictment could declare it so.²⁵

Enslaved people and people of color

Enslaved people had no legal capacity to contract a marriage, so no civil marriage record exists for them, and a child of an enslaved father was illegitimate in law.

The bar on marriage across the color line reaches back to the colony's first slavery statute. By the act of 1664 a free-born English woman who married an enslaved man served her husband's owner for the rest of her husband's life, and the children of such a marriage followed their father into slavery. Children of marriages already contracted served their parents' masters until they reached 30.²⁶ The act of 1692 revisited the matter, and later acts kept a prohibition on the books.²⁷ Those penalties leave traces of their own. A free woman reduced to service, and children bound for a term of years, appear in the county court proceedings that adjudged them. They appear again in the inventories of the households that held them, where a servant is entered with the years still to serve. A statutory bar to marriage between white and Black Marylanders survived until it was repealed in 1967, the year the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia.²⁸

Maryland ended slavery by the Constitution of 1864, which took effect on 1 November 1864,²⁹ and the single most important marriage record for African American research in the state is the act of 1867 that followed it. It confirmed every marriage celebrated in the state before 22 March 1867 between colored people, and made it valid from the date of the ceremony. The parties had to prove the marriage before a justice of the peace; the resulting certificate was filed with the clerk of the circuit court for the county where the marriage was celebrated, and preserved with the register of marriage licenses.³⁰ Look for these certificates alongside the license books, not among them. Separately, where an enslaved couple ratified their marriage after they became free, the marriage was good.³¹

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Every free man could acquire, hold, and convey land, and at 21 he did so in his own name without anyone's concurrence. A free man's right did not depend on wealth, tax payment, office, or the vote. Free Black and mixed-race men held and conveyed land and appear in the land records doing it; the restrictions that surrounded their ownership are set out below.

An enslaved man had no legal capacity to own property of any kind. Whatever he possessed belonged in law to his enslaver, and enslaved people themselves were appraised as personal property in estate inventories.

A foreign-born man's position turned on citizenship. The common law let an alien buy and hold land but not inherit it, and left what he bought open to seizure by the state. Maryland lifted those restrictions in stages, and from 1874 an alien stood on the same footing as a citizen in the holding of property.³² Naturalization therefore matters most for land bought before that date.

Women and land ownership

Everything turned on marriage. A single woman or a widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, hold, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. A woman transacting freely in the Maryland deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed.

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture — the common-law rule that merged a wife's legal identity into her husband's. Her husband managed her land and took its rents and profits, and her personal property passed to him.

The dismantling came in stages, and the act of 1898 is the hinge. From it, the property a woman brought to her marriage or acquired afterwards was her own. She could hold it as though unmarried, convey it with the same power as a husband, go into business, make contracts, and sue and be sued on those contracts and for wrongs she committed, exactly as a single woman could.³³

The same reform reached the probate office. Before 1898 a married woman named as executrix in a will could not take the office; the court granted letters as though she had not been named, unless her husband gave bond.³⁴ From 1898 she took letters testamentary and letters of administration — the court's written authority to act for an estate — as though unmarried.³⁵

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

Maryland's rule is the broad one.

Dower was a widow's life estate — a right to use land and take its income for life, not to own it — in one-third of her husband's land. Maryland dower reached every parcel the husband held at any time during the marriage, whether or not he still held it when he died, and from 1818 it reached land he held in equity as well as at law.³⁶ A wife's claim, though it could not take effect until his death, therefore clouded the title to every parcel her husband had ever owned. A buyer needed her to release it.

Because Maryland never narrowed dower, the answer is the same through 1950: expect the wife to join in her husband's deed, at any date in this guide. That makes an unsigned deed worth a second look — it usually means the man was unmarried when he sold.

The point survived every reform. Even after 1916 gave a surviving spouse a share of the land as an heir, the code was explicit that nothing in it let a husband or wife convey real estate free of the other's dower without the other's joinder.³⁷

How she released it changed, and the two forms look completely different on the page.

In the colonial period Maryland used a privy examination — a private interview with an official, apart from her husband, certifying that she acted of her own free will. The act of 1715 made it the whole basis of her release. A married woman was barred of her estate, and of her dower, by that examination and acknowledgment and by a certificate of it enrolled upon record, "and not otherwise." The dower bar worked even where she was not named in the deed at all.³⁸ Where the wife lived outside the province, an act of 1752 let the examination be taken abroad: before the mayor of a corporation in Great Britain or Ireland, or before a justice of a supreme court in any of the king's dominions. It was then certified by endorsement on the deed.³⁹ So for a colonial Maryland deed, look for the separate certificate of the wife's examination enrolled with the deed — it is a distinct document and it names her.

The Act of 1856 ended it. "An Act to Simplify and Abridge the Rules and Forms of Conveyances" let a married woman convey her own real estate, or give up her dower in her husband's, by a joint deed executed by herself and her husband. She could also give up dower by her own separate deed.⁴⁰ The act's certificate of a married woman's acknowledgment has husband and wife appear together and each acknowledge the deed to be their respective act, and it says nothing of any examination.⁴¹ That form passed straight into the Code of 1860 and carried forward unchanged into the twentieth century.⁴² From 1856, then, a Maryland deed shows joinder and a joint acknowledgment, and that alone made it good. A wife's separate deed releasing dower, with no conveyance by her husband on its face, is a Maryland form worth recognizing — it is exactly what the statute authorized.

Two situations put a wife's name on a deed for reasons other than dower, and both are informative. The land may have been hers. And an unmarried woman between 18 and 21 who conveyed her property into a deed of trust did so only on the approval of an equity court, which leaves a petition and an order naming her.⁸

Two situations excused a signature. From 1872, where a husband or wife had been absent seven years, or had been adjudged of unsound mind, the other could convey property acquired after the absence began or the finding was made as though unmarried.⁴³ A deed of that kind, executed by one spouse alone with a recital explaining why, is evidence of a long absence or a confinement, and both leave court records of their own.

What a widower received

At common law a widower took curtesy — a life estate in all of his late wife's land, conditional on a child having been born alive of the marriage. Maryland replaced it. By statute a surviving husband takes a life estate in one-third of the land his wife held at any time during the marriage, whether or not she still held it at her death. A conveyance by the wife alone does not bar it. The statute calls this estate the husband's dower and has it read by the same rules as the wife's. It applies wherever a wife died after 1 June 1918.⁴⁴ The wife's date of death therefore decides which rule governs her husband's interest.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by descent, by devise (a gift of land by will), by gift, or by purchase. Selling it was the constraint, and Maryland routed that through the Orphans' Court and a bonded guardian. Where a Maryland deed conveys a child's land, the guardianship file holds the family.

How a deed was signed and recorded

A Maryland conveyance had to be in writing, signed by the grantor, acknowledged before an authorized officer — that is, formally declared in front of a judge, clerk, or justice of the peace, who then certified it — and recorded among the county land records. The code printed set forms for the deed and for the acknowledgment, including the form used where a wife joins her husband's deed.⁴⁵ Maryland set no age for a witness to a deed, because it required no witnesses at all. A deed was good if the grantor signed and sealed it, acknowledged it before an authorized officer, and had it recorded.⁴⁶ Witnesses appear on many Maryland deeds all the same, by the habit of the draftsman rather than by law, and they were usually adults and often kin or neighbors of the grantor. That makes the names at the foot of a deed worth harvesting even though the deed did not depend on them.

Free people of color and enslaved people

Free people of color could own land in Maryland, and did. They bought, held, devised, and conveyed it, and appear in the land records accordingly. The restrictions fell on the freedoms surrounding ownership rather than on ownership itself, and they tightened sharply in the decades before the Civil War. Statutes restricted the movement, residence, and employment of free Black Marylanders, and the antebellum code gathered them into a single article, printed under the racial heading of the day.⁴⁷

Enslaved people were themselves property, listed and appraised in estate inventories alongside livestock and furniture. The assessments of 1782 and 1783 went further and set values by age and sex: men aged 14 to 45 at £70 unless they were craftsmen or infirm, women 14 to 36 at £60, children 8 to 14 at £25.⁴⁸ Those bands are, grimly, one of the more precise age indicators in the early records.

Inheritance

Two separate systems

Where a person died without a will — died intestate — Maryland divided the estate under two sets of rules that worked differently:

• Land passed by the canons of descent — the fixed rules saying which relative inherits — directly to the heirs, at the moment of death.
• Personal property — money, livestock, furniture, debts owed to the dead person, and before 1864 enslaved people — passed under the statute of distributions, through an administrator appointed by the court, once the debts were paid.

The two ran side by side until 1916, when one set of shares took over both.

How land passed to the children

Colonial Maryland followed primogeniture: the eldest son took the whole of his father's land. The Act to Direct Descents, passed in 1786, abolished it, and the courts have confirmed that the right of primogeniture existed in Maryland as at common law before that act.⁴⁹ Under the new scheme the heirs took together as coparceners — co-heirs holding as a single heir — with the whole body of them constituting one heir at law.⁵⁰

Because land descended to a group, Maryland built an elaborate machinery for dividing it, and that machinery is a genealogical goldmine. Commissioners were appointed and sworn; notice went to every party interested, including non-residents by publication; the court appointed a guardian for any minor heir who lacked one; the commissioners surveyed and divided the land into as many parts as there were heirs. Where the land could not be divided conveniently it was valued and offered to the heirs in order, the eldest son first, then the next eldest, and so on. If none would take it, the commissioners sold it and the proceeds were divided.⁵¹ A single division proceeding therefore names the widow, every child, the children of any deceased child, and often their residences.

In 1916 Maryland merged the two systems. From that year, land descended to the same persons, and in the same proportions, as the surplus personal property of an intestate.⁵² One set of shares now governed everything.

How money and goods were divided

The one-third rule is old. Maryland formally adopted the English law governing the administration of estates in 1704, and the testamentary act of 1715 set out the shares: once debts, fees, and commissions were paid, a surviving widow took one-third and the children divided the rest equally.⁵³ The act of 1798 restated them and the act of 1898 made them sex-neutral, but the fractions themselves held from the colonial period to the end of this one.

The shares do not vary with the number of children, so the widow's fraction alone will never tell you how many children there were:⁵⁴

The distribution account is where those fractions turn into names. It is filed with the register at the close of an administration, and it sets out each person taking a share, the relation they stood in, and what they received. That makes it the single most useful document for rebuilding a Maryland family from an estate left without a will.

The 1798 wording ran through 1950.⁵⁴ Two later dates matter. The act of 1898 rewrote the sections in the neutral language of "surviving husband or widow," and it applies where the wife died after 1 January 1899.⁵⁵ Before it, a husband took his wife's personal estate by right of marriage rather than as a person entitled to a share. The $2,000 figure was put into the sibling case in 1933.⁵⁶

The widow's election

A surviving spouse who disliked what a will left could renounce it and take the statutory share instead, and the renunciation had to be filed within six months.⁵⁷

Dower survived the 1916 reform, but only for those who claimed it. From that year a surviving wife or husband was taken to have given up dower and accepted the statutory share instead. To keep dower the survivor had to file a signed written election, within six months of the death, with the Orphans' Court or the Register of Wills for the county where the land lay. Choosing dower meant giving up every other interest in the Maryland land in favor of the other heirs.⁵⁸ That election, or its absence, sits in the probate file and tells you who owned the land afterwards.

Guardians for children

The colonial system is older than the 1798 act and worked to its own ages. Under the act of 1715 the county courts supervised orphans' estates. One of its provisions has no parallel elsewhere in this guide. Enslaved people belonging to an orphan were appraised to the guardian, who took their labor. At the minor's full age the guardian had to hand back the like number, of like ability of body, and make good in money or tobacco any shortfall the county court assessed. Servants with years still to serve were returned in kind on the same principle.⁵⁹ An eighteenth-century Maryland guardian's account therefore lists enslaved people by name and age at both ends of the guardianship.

A guardian was appointed because a child owned something. Where land came to a male under 21 or a female under 18, and the father's will had named nobody, the Orphans' Court of the county where the child lived appointed one. So did a share of an estate, a legacy, or property taken by gift or purchase. The appointment ran until 21 for a male, and until 18 for a female, or until her marriage.⁶⁰ The guardian gave bond, accounted to the court every year, and handed over at the end. Where a child inherited nothing, no guardianship record was created at all.

At fourteen a colonial minor chose his own guardian, and did it in open court. The act of 1715 directed that an orphan old enough to choose be called before the county court and there name the guardian into whose hands the estate went; a younger child had trustees appointed for him instead.⁶¹ An act of 1763 put the figure in words: on application the court could let an orphan of fourteen choose, and appointed for a child under fourteen.⁶² A guardianship record in which the child does the choosing is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

The act of 1798 gave the choice to the court. It empowered the Orphans' Court to appoint a guardian and to appoint until the minor came of age, and on that ground the selection was held to rest with the court alone.⁶³ After 1798, then, a Maryland guardianship is the court's appointment; a letter from a minor naming his preferred guardian is worth reading for the kinship it claims rather than as the act that made the guardian.

The guardian's final account is one of the most valuable documents in Maryland genealogy. It is filed when the minor comes of age, so it dates majority within a few months and therefore brackets a birth year — and it frequently reveals a girl's married surname, since her guardianship could end at her marriage.

Three points relocate records:

• The Orphans' Court could appoint a guardian even though the child's father or mother was living, on notice to the parent to show cause. Such an appointment was as valid as if both parents were dead.⁶⁴ A guardianship for a child whose father is alive usually means the child took property from somewhere other than the father — a grandparent, an uncle, a mother's family — and that is a lead worth following.
• Where a minor was entitled to personal property by gift or purchase and had no guardian in the state, the Orphans' Court of the county of residence could appoint one.⁶⁵
• Where no guardian was appointed at all, the administrator of the estate took possession of the child's share and accounted as a guardian would, under the same control of the court.⁶⁶ So the guardianship you are looking for may be buried in an administration account.

Children born outside marriage

For a child born outside marriage the rules differ sharply depending on which parent is in question.

From the mother, freely. A child born outside marriage, and that child's own descendants, could take and inherit both real and personal estate from the mother, from each other, and from each other's descendants.⁶⁷ The mother of such a child counted as a "parent" when the shares of personal property were worked out.⁶⁸

From the father, only by later marriage and acknowledgment. Where a man had a child by a woman whom he afterwards married, the child was legitimated by virtue of that marriage and his acknowledgment, and was then capable in law of inheriting and transmitting inheritance as if born in wedlock.⁶⁹ Both elements were needed. The Court of Appeals said plainly that this section sets out the only right of inheritance from the father that Maryland statutes gave an illegitimate child. The rule applies even where the parents could not lawfully have married at the time of the birth,⁷⁰ and an earlier prosecution of the father to make him support the child does not bar a later claim under it.⁷¹ So where a Maryland inheritance runs to a child whose birth predates the parents' marriage, the marriage record and an acknowledgment are the documents to find.

Making and witnessing a will

The age to leave land by will was 21 for a male and 18 for a female, and that rule ran unchanged from the act of 1798 through 1950. The statute set two tests. No will was good at all unless the maker was of sound and disposing mind and capable of making a valid deed or contract. And none passed an interest in land unless the maker had reached 21 if a male, or 18 if a female.⁷² A Maryland woman's will proved when she was 18 or over is good as to her land.

A will of personal property alone went by a different measure. Before 1798 the common-law ages governed, as they did in England: a boy of 14 and a girl of 12 could dispose of personal property by will. From 1798 the statute set no age for personal property at all. It asked only that the maker be of sound and disposing mind and capable of making a valid deed or contract, so a will of personal property turned on the maker's capacity rather than on a birthday.⁷³

A married woman could make no will at all at common law. An act of 1842 let her make one, but only if her husband joined in it and she was examined separately from him to show she was not acting under pressure. Both requirements were dropped in 1929.⁷⁴ So a Maryland wife's will made between 1842 and 1929 carries her husband's joinder and a certificate of her separate examination — one more document, and one more name, than a husband's will of the same date.

The number of witnesses changed on 1 August 1884, and that date decides whether a will stood. Under the 1798 act a gift of land by will needed three or four credible witnesses subscribing — signing — in the presence of the testator, the person making the will, or it was void outright.⁷⁵ The act of 1884 cut the number to two or more and put wills of land and of personal property on the same footing.⁷⁶

Count the witnesses before you build on a will. A pre-1884 Maryland will of land with only two names at the foot did not carry the land. The real estate then descended to the heirs as though there were no will at all. So the record that settles the land is the administration and the division, not the will you found. The trap runs the other way at the far end: a will of personal property made before 1884 to the older standard could fail if the testator lived on past the Code of 1888, which dropped the saving clause.⁷⁷

Every Maryland will needed its witnesses, whoever wrote it. Witnessing was the test of a valid will, so a paper in the deceased's own hand carried his estate only if witnesses had signed it.⁷⁸ Where family tradition holds that an ancestor left a will in his own hand, expect to find an administration in the register's records instead.

A witness qualified on being credible, not on age. A gift to a witness did not disqualify him, and an executor who was also named guardian of the testator's children was competent.⁷⁹ The names are worth harvesting. Maryland required the witnesses to sign in one another's presence as well as the testator's, so the three or four people at the foot of a will were all in the room together. They were usually kin or near neighbors.

The age to serve as executor was 18 under the codes; the act of 1715 had used 17, treating an executor or administrator below that age as an infant.⁸⁰ Where the person named in the will was under age, the Orphans' Court granted administration durante minoritate — administration during minority — which ran until he reached 18. The grant of letters then revoked it, and the temporary administrator accounted and handed over.⁸¹ A change of administrator a few years into a Maryland estate is very often a young executor coming of age, and the date of the new letters fixes his eighteenth birthday within weeks. It is one of the cleanest birth-dating devices in the Maryland record.

Taxation

Colonial taxables

Maryland's principal colonial tax on individuals was the poll or head tax — a capitation, a flat charge on a person rather than on the value of property. The county collected it from the head of each household, for everyone taxable under his roof.

A person became taxable at 16, and the act of 1715 says exactly who counted: all male persons resident in the province, and all female slaves, of the age of sixteen years or above. Three classes were exempt — clergymen of the Church of England holding benefices, poor people receiving alms from the county, and any enslaved person whom the county court judged past labor.⁸²

Once taxable, a man stayed taxable for life. Relief came by class, or by the county court's order in a particular case, and never at a fixed birthday. So a man who drops off a colonial list is more likely dead, moved away, or on alms than aged out.

The same act sets out how the list was made, and it explains what survives. Every constable had to go in person to every house in his hundred — the district he served — by 20 June each year. From the master, mistress, dame, or other chief person of the family he demanded a signed list of all their taxable persons, named one by one. He made two fair copies, one for the sheriff and one for the next county court. Concealing a taxable cost 500 pounds of tobacco a head.⁸³ That naming requirement is why some Maryland tax lists give every taxable in the household by name, enslaved people included, rather than a bare count.

The lopsidedness of that rule is a useful fact in colonial Maryland tax research. The list caught every resident male of 16 and every enslaved woman of 16, while a free white woman stood outside it. Free women of color did not stand outside it. The wives of free men of color were levied, and a woman who wanted off the list had to petition the county court to declare her levy-free.⁸⁴ A household's taxable count therefore carries information about its enslaved members as well as its free males, and a jump in the count is often a boy turning 16. A woman heading a household appears on the list as the person paying, with the taxables under her roof counted around her.⁸⁵

From the Revolution onward

Maryland turned against the poll tax at independence. The Declaration of Rights of 1776 declared that levying taxes by the poll was grievous and oppressive and ought to be abolished, and that paupers ought not to be assessed for the support of government. That was a statement of principle rather than a repealing act, but no general poll tax was laid again, and the colonial lists of taxables stop.⁸⁶

A general property tax replaced it. An act of the February 1777 session set the rate for 1777 and 1778 at ten shillings per £100 of assessed value on real and personal property, and further acts set the rates and rules for the assessments of 1782 and 1783.⁸⁷ These assessments reach further down the social scale than the colonial tax lists do, but they stop short of the poorest. A pauper, meaning a person whose whole property was worth £10 or less, was not assessed at all. A widow well provided for by her family, or a single man working on his father's plantation, could fall into that class without being destitute.⁸⁸ Quakers, Mennonites, and Dunkers who refused to contribute on grounds of conscience were reported to the commissioners, who could decline to double their assessment if satisfied the refusal came from scruple alone.⁸⁹

Later taxes on individuals leave probate records rather than tax lists. An inheritance tax fell on property passing at death,⁹⁰ and a Maryland estate tax was added in 1929.⁹¹ Both produce a return in the estate file that usually lists every beneficiary and their relationship to the deceased.

Between the Revolutionary assessments and the twentieth century the state and the counties raised their money from a general property tax on the assessed value of real and personal property. It was administered county by county, so the assessment books and the county levy lists are county records rather than state ones, and they run in an unbroken series through the nineteenth century. They record a householder and what he was worth, not the people living under his roof, so they will place a family on a particular piece of ground in a particular year but will not count its members the way a colonial list of taxables does. One federal levy falls inside the same stretch and is far more informative: the direct tax of 1798, which describes houses, outbuildings, and land occupier by occupier.⁹²

Maryland also began taxing income in 1937, at first a flat half of one percent, replaced the next year by a rate of two and a half percent on ordinary income.⁹³ That tax names no family members, so it does none of the work the poll and property lists do.

Courts

Jury service

A Maryland juror had to be 25. The rule dates from 1797 and stood through the 1939 code: no person was to be selected and placed on a panel as a juror who had not reached the age of twenty-five.⁹⁴ The courts treated it as directory rather than jurisdictional, so an indictment stood even where a juror turned out to be under age.⁹⁵

A man could serve without owning land. The statute qualified a juror by his place on the tax books alone,⁹⁶ Maryland having dropped the freehold test — the old requirement that a juror own land outright — in the Revolutionary generation.

What the statute required instead was the tax roll, and that is the part worth using. The clerk of the county commissioners filed with the circuit court a list of the male taxable inhabitants or residents of the county whose names stood on the county tax books and who were not known to be under 25.⁹⁷ A Maryland jury list is therefore a filtered tax list. Two things follow for a researcher. A man who served was on the county tax books for that year, so the tax list is the place to find him again. And he was at least 25 when he served, which sets a latest possible birth year. The requirement worked in the other direction too — a man who paid no tax stayed off the panels, and so did every woman, by force of the word "male."

Exemptions explain absences. All persons over 70 were exempt from attendance, as were delegates, coroners, and constables while in office, and schoolmasters, physicians, and pharmacists.⁹⁸ A man who drops off the panels in his seventies has simply aged out, and an occupation can be the reason a man never appears at all. No judge of the Orphans' Court could be selected in any case.⁹⁹ Where a panel ran short, the court summoned talesmen — bystanders taken on the spot to fill it out.¹⁰⁰

Women became eligible in 1947. Chapter 595 of that session added a new section to the jury article. No person was to be disqualified for jury service by reason of sex. The qualifications and exemptions applied to women as well as men, and the lists jurors are drawn from were to carry the names of both. It was approved on 10 April 1947 and took effect on 1 June 1947.¹⁰¹

The act did not reach the whole state at once, and this matters if your family was rural. Twelve counties were written out of it — Allegany, Calvert, Carroll, Charles, Garrett, Howard, Kent, Queen Anne's, St. Mary's, Talbot, Washington, and Worcester.¹⁰² In those counties women stayed off the jury lists, and the legislature was still bringing them in county by county more than a decade later.¹⁰³

Criminal responsibility

Maryland took the common-law ages of infancy and kept them, and never replaced them by statute before 1950. A child under 7 could not be guilty of a crime at all. Between 7 and 14 the law presumed the child incapable, and the prosecution had to overcome the presumption by proving the child understood the wrongfulness of the act. From 14 a person bore full criminal responsibility.¹⁰⁴

In the twentieth century the handling of children moved sideways rather than the age moving up. Maryland created Magistrates for Juvenile Causes, sitting in Baltimore City and in the counties. They took the preliminary hearings, and where a jury trial was waived they could hear and decide the case themselves. Alongside them sat a body of law aimed at parents and others who left a child without proper care or guardianship.¹⁰⁵ The practical consequence for a researcher is that a twentieth-century Maryland child's file may sit with a juvenile magistrate rather than in the ordinary criminal dockets, and juvenile files are typically closed.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could give a rational account of what happened. Competency, not age, was the test: the trial judge decided it witness by witness, and children did testify.¹⁰⁶

Two nineteenth-century changes reshaped who could take the stand, and both explain what survives in the files. The Evidence Act of 1864 made every person competent whatever their interest in the outcome, and whatever their previous convictions, with perjury the one exception. It also made the parties themselves, and their husbands and wives, both competent and compellable.¹⁰⁷ That compellability was later held to reach civil cases only.¹⁰⁸ In criminal cases the accused became a competent witness at his own request but could not be compelled.¹⁰⁹ Before 1864 the interest rule kept the parties off the stand, which is why a Maryland lawsuit file from the 1840s or 1850s is full of depositions from neighbors and silent from the two people actually arguing.

Women and people of color as witnesses and jurors

Women were competent witnesses throughout the period. What reached a married woman's evidence before 1864 was the interest rule, which caught any party or interested person, together with the common-law rules about spouses. Jury service, by contrast, was closed to women by the word "male" in the jury list statute until the act effective 1 June 1947.

The bar on the testimony of Black Marylanders was statutory and long-lived. A supplemental act of 1717, whose preamble declared it dangerous to allow such evidence, enacted that no Black, mixed-race, or Native person could give evidence in any matter where a white Christian was concerned.¹¹⁰ The bar reached free people as well as the enslaved: the act named the free child of a white woman, during the years of service such a child owed, alongside the enslaved. Emancipation and the Evidence Act of 1864 replaced it with a competency test resting on interest and conviction alone, open to every witness whatever their color.¹¹¹

On juries, the tax-roll requirement and the practice of the county clerks did the work that the statute no longer did, and Black Marylanders were kept off panels long after the legal bar was gone.

Sources and Where to Verify

Constitutions

• Maryland. Amendments to the Constitutions of Maryland. Archives of Maryland, vol. 380. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000380/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland. Constitution of 1864. Slavery abolished, effective 1 November 1864. Maryland State Archives. https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc2600/sc2685/html/conv1864.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland. Declaration of Rights, 1776. The reception of the common law is art. III and the condemnation of poll taxes is art. XIII. These are the articles that governed for most of the period covered here; the modern equivalents are art. 5 and art. 15 of the present Declaration of Rights, the latter amended by ch. 390, Acts of 1914. Maryland General Assembly. https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/Constitution (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland. Declaration of Rights and Constitution. Current text: art. 5 (reception of the common law and of English statutes in force 4 July 1776) and art. 15 (taxes by the poll). Maryland General Assembly. https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/Constitution (accessed 26 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Bacon, Thomas, comp. Laws of Maryland at Large. Annapolis: Jonas Green, 1765. The colonial acts collected from the original records, each with its chapter and date — the source to use for a colonial chapter number. The 1715 and 1717 acts are at pp. 205–302. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000075/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Dorsey, Clement, comp. The General Public Statutory Law and Public Local Law of the State of Maryland, 1692–1839. Baltimore: John D. Toy, 1840. The acts themselves, with annotations, for the whole pre-code period. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000141/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Flack, Horace E., ed. The Annotated Code of the Public General Laws of Maryland. Baltimore: King Brothers, 1939. The code in force at the end of this period, and the best volume for tracing a rule backward, since every section prints its full derivation (conveyancing at art. 21, pp. 716–57; evidence at art. 35, pp. 1585–1615; husband and wife at art. 45, pp. 1981–94; inheritance at art. 46, pp. 1995–2013; juries at art. 51, pp. 2208–19; marriages at art. 62, pp. 2530–36; revenue at art. 81, pp. 3017–3136; testamentary law at art. 93, pp. 3361–3507). The page numbers run continuously across the two printed volumes. Archives of Maryland, vol. 379. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Kilty, William. A Report of All Such English Statutes as Existed at the Time of the First Emigration of the People of Maryland. Annapolis: Jehu Chandler, 1811. Which English statutes Maryland received. Archives of Maryland, vol. 194. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000194/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland. Annotated Code of Maryland (current). Each section printed with its citation chain. Maryland General Assembly. https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Poe, John Prentiss, comp. The Maryland Code, Public General Laws. Baltimore: King Bros., 1888. An intermediate link in most of the citation chains. Archives of Maryland, vol. 389. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000389/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Poe, John Prentiss, comp. The Maryland Code, Public General Laws. Baltimore: King Bros., 1904. The next link in those chains. Archives of Maryland, vol. 393. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000393/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Scott, Otho, and Hiram M’Cullough, comps. The Maryland Code: Public General Laws and Public Local Laws. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1860. The essential antebellum volume (conveyancing at art. 24, marriages at art. 60, the article on free and enslaved people of color at art. 66, and the testamentary law at art. 93). Archives of Maryland, vol. 145. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000145/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).

Session Laws

• Laws of Maryland, 1856. “An Act to Simplify and Abridge the Rules and Forms of Conveyances” (ch. 154, p. 253), which ended the separate examination of a married woman. Archives of Maryland, vol. 623. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000623/html/am623--253.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Laws of Maryland, 1947. Ch. 595 (Senate Bill 99), qualifying women to serve on juries, at p. 1495. Archives of Maryland, vol. 411. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000411/html/am411--1495.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Laws of Maryland, 1959. Ch. 47, extending jury service by women to three of the exempted counties, at p. 54. Archives of Maryland, vol. 642. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000642/html/am642--54.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Laws of Maryland, by session. The full text of every act, colonial and state. The pivotal acts cited above — 1664 (slavery); 1715, chs. 15, 37, 39, 44, 47; 1717, chs. 13, 15; 1763, ch. 24 (choice of guardian); 1777, chs. 12, 15, 21; 1786, ch. 45 (descents); 1797, ch. 87 (jurors); 1798, ch. 101 (testamentary system); 1856, ch. 154 (conveyances); 1867, ch. 423 (marriages of colored persons); 1884, ch. 293 (two witnesses); 1886, ch. 497 (marriage licenses); 1898, chs. 331, 457 (distribution; married women); 1916, ch. 325 (descent and dower); 1918, ch. 410 (husband’s dower); 1939, ch. 728 (marriage ages); and 1947, ch. 595 (women jurors). Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• 1798 Federal Direct Tax — Maryland. Archives of Maryland, vol. 729. Images of the extant Maryland lists, describing houses, outbuildings, and land occupier by occupier — the fullest surviving property record between the Revolutionary assessments and the twentieth century. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000729/html/index.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland. Archives of Maryland, vol. 30, April 26–June 3, 1715. The 1715 acts as recorded, including the taxables provision of ch. 15 at p. 276. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000030/html/am30--276.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland. Archives of Maryland, vol. 33, session of 1717. The supplementary act of ch. 13 barring the testimony of Black, mixed-race, and Native people, at p. 111. Digital images. Archives of Maryland Online. https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000033/html/am33--111.html (accessed 26 July 2026).

Court Cases

• Barron v. Zimmerman. 117 Md. 296 (1912).
• Bartlett v. Ligon. 135 Md. 620 (1920).
• Catlin v. Catlin. 60 Md. 575 (1883).
• Denison v. Denison. 35 Md. 361 (1872).
• Dilworth v. Dilworth. 134 Md. 585 (1919).
• Estep v. Morris. 38 Md. 417 (1873).
• Feehley v. Feehley. 129 Md. 565 (1916).
• Fensterwald v. Burk. 129 Md. 131 (1916).
• Fornshill v. Murray. 1 Bland 479 (1827).
• Gilpin v. Hollingsworth. 3 Md. 190 (1852).
• Green v. State. 59 Md. 123 (1882).
• Hawbecker v. Hawbecker. 43 Md. 516 (1875).
• Higgins v. Carlton. 28 Md. 115 (1867).
• Hollars v. State. 125 Md. 367 (1915).
• In re Turner. 24 F. Cas. 337 (C.C.D. Md. 1867).
• Jones v. Jones. 36 Md. 456 (1872).
• Key v. Key. 134 Md. 419 (1919).
• Loving v. Virginia. 388 U.S. 1 (1967). Digital images. Justia. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/388/1/ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Mauro v. Ritchie. 16 F. Cas. 1171 (C.C.D.C. 1827). A Circuit Court for the District of Columbia decision construing the Maryland guardianship acts of 1715, 1763, and 1798, and quoting their text.
• Reese v. Starner. 106 Md. 50 (1907).
• Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Gittings. 103 Md. 485 (1906).
• Sudler v. Sudler. 121 Md. 46 (1913).
• Tabler v. Tabler. 62 Md. 601 (1884).
• Turpin v. State. 55 Md. 462 (1881).
• Wilson v. Jarrell. 137 Md. 561 (1921).

Secondary and Reference Works

• “Blacks before the Law in Colonial Maryland.” Maryland State Archives. The colonial slavery, marriage, and testimony statutes traced through the legislative record. https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5348/html/chap3.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769. The statement of the English common law Maryland received, and the authority for the ages that Maryland never put into a statute — full age at 21, marriage at 14 and 12, and criminal capacity at 7 and 14. Book 1, chapters 15 and 17, and book 4, chapter 2. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/blackstone.asp (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Bogen, David S. “The Maryland Context of Dred Scott: The Decline in the Legal Status of Maryland Free Blacks 1776–1810.” American Journal of Legal History 34, no. 4 (October 1990): 381–411. Repository copy, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty Scholarship no. 766. DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1765&context=fac_pubs (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Department of Legislative Services. Maryland’s Revenue Structure. Annapolis: Department of Legislative Services, 2015. The dates and rates of the individual income tax from 1937. Digital images. Department of Legislative Services Library. https://dlslibrary.state.md.us/publications/OPA/P/MRS_2015.pdf (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Hartogensis, B. H. “Maryland Statutory Modifications of the Common Law of Real Property.” Maryland Law Review 1, no. 3 (1937): 238. Aliens, dower, curtesy, married women’s wills and contracts, and conveyancing. DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=mlr (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Henderson, Bob. Bob’s Genealogy Filing Cabinet. Plain-language essays on coverture, dower, and curtesy. https://genfiles.com/articles/womens-rights/ and https://genfiles.com/articles/dower-and-curtesy/ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• “June 1 marks anniversary of having women on Maryland juries.” The Daily Record, 31 May 2010. The 1947 act and the twelve exempted counties. https://thedailyrecord.com/2010/05/31/june-1-marks-anniversary-of-having-women-on-maryland-juries/ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware. Introduction and family histories, abstracting the colonial county court and levy records — including the petitions and orders relieving free women of color from the levy. https://freeafricanamericans.com/Intro-md.htm (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland Courts. “The History of the Orphans’ Court in Maryland.” https://www.courts.state.md.us/orphanscourt/history (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland State Archives. “Guide to Government Records: Marriage Records.” What the license applications and certificates contain from 1886 onward, including the consent of the parents or guardians of minors. https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=marriage-former (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland State Archives. “Marriage Records: Historical Background.” The colonial marriage acts from 1640, including the oath that neither party was apprenticed or under the governance of a parent or guardian. https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=marriage-historical-background (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland State Archives. “Understanding Maryland Records: Inheritance of Property.” Primogeniture, the Descents Act, dower, and the division records. https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=inheritanceproperty (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Maryland State Archives. “Understanding Maryland Records: Tax Lists & Early Assessments.” Who counted as a taxable, and what the assessments valued. https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=earlytaxes (accessed 26 July 2026).
• U.S. Women’s Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America, January 1, 1948: Report for Maryland. By Sara L. Buchanan, aided by Mary L. Sullivan and Elizabeth Batson. Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, no. 157-19 (rev.). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. A digest of Maryland law on majority, married women’s property, dower, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, with citations to the code then in force; later Maryland reports follow as of 1 January 1953 and 1 January 1959. HathiTrust catalog record for the 1959 report: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011418449. The series is also on FRASER: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/legal-status-women-united-states-america-5430 (accessed 26 July 2026).

Citations

1. Md. Const., Declaration of Rights, art. 5 (entitlement to the common law of England and to English statutes in force on 4 July 1776); descended from the Declaration of Rights of 1776, art. III. The annotations to art. 5 in the 1939 code discuss which English acts qualified — for example, that the English marriage acts were not among them ↩
2. William Kilty, A Report of All Such English Statutes as Existed at the Time of the First Emigration of the People of Maryland (Annapolis: Jehu Chandler, 1811); republished with annotations as Julian J. Alexander, British Statutes in Force in Maryland, 2d ed. (Baltimore: M. Curlander, 1912); digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000194/html/index.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
3. Act of 1798, ch. 101; its sub-chapters are cited individually below. The derivation lines throughout art. 93 of the 1939 code trace back to it ↩
4. Twenty-one was the common-law age Maryland received at settlement, and no Maryland statute of this period altered it. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769), bk. 1, ch. 17 — the ages of a male and of a female are set out separately, and full age in male or female is twenty-one years; digital images, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch17.asp : accessed 26 July 2026). For the reception, Md. Const., Declaration of Rights, art. 5. Maryland statutes assume the age throughout: Code of 1939, art. 93, § 152 (guardianship of a male runs to 21) and § 335 (a will of land requires 21 in a male), Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 3361–3507 ↩
5. The Maryland Code: Public General Laws and Public Local Laws, comp. Otho Scott and Hiram M’Cullough (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1860), art. 93, § 142; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000145/html/index.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
6. Act of 1715, ch. 39, § XV, "An Act for the better Administration of Justice in Testamentary Affairs" — every female orphan accounted of full age to receive her estate at 16, or the day of her marriage, whichever first happened; printed in Thomas Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large (Annapolis: Jonas Green, 1765), p. 244. The same act treats an administrator under 17 as an infant executor. digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000075/html/am75--244.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
7. The 1798 guardianship section is set out as appointing to 21 for a male and to 16, or marriage, for a female in Mauro v. Ritchie, 16 F. Cas. 1171, 1174 (C.C.D.C. 1827), a decision of the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia construing the Maryland testamentary act then in force in Washington County; the will age of 18 for a female is Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 1, § 3. The codified ages of 21 and 18 are Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, §§ 148, 200, and Code of 1939, art. 93, § 152 ↩
8. The Annotated Code of the Public General Laws of Maryland, ed. Horace E. Flack (Baltimore: King Brothers, 1939), art. 21, § 1 (conveyancing), at p. 716 — an unmarried woman between 18 and 21 may make a deed of trust of her property only on the approval and sanction of a court of equity, on her petition; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--716.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩ ↩
9. The rule that an infant's conveyance is voidable and not void, and that he may avoid it on coming of age, is common law: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769), bk. 1, ch. 17; digital images, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch17.asp : accessed 26 July 2026). For the Maryland practice of selling a minor's land through a bonded guardian under an order of the Orphans' Court, Code of 1939, art. 93, §§ 152–61 ↩
10. Denison v. Denison, 35 Md. 361, 379 (1872); Fornshill v. Murray, 1 Bland 479, 482 (1827). The proposition is printed in the annotations to Code of 1939, art. 62, § 4 ↩
11. Feehley v. Feehley, 129 Md. 565, 569 (1916) ↩
12. Code of 1939, art. 62, § 4; carried from Act of 1777, ch. 12, sec. 5, through the acts of 1865, 1866, 1868, 1882, 1886, 1912, and 1927, and the codes of 1888 (art. 62, § 4), 1904, 1912, and 1924 ↩
13. Act of 1717, ch. 15, "An Act for the Publication of Marriages, and to prevent unlawful Marriages," passed 8 June 1717; Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, pp. 301–02, including the penalty on persons getting their marriage solemnized in a neighboring colony. ↩
14. Act of 1777, ch. 12, sec. 5; carried through the acts of 1865, 1866, 1868, 1882, 1886, 1912, and 1927 and the codes of 1888 to 1939, where it is art. 62, § 4 ↩
15. For the whole table: Code of 1939, art. 62, § 4 (license or thrice-published banns, the Quaker certificate, and the forms of licence and certificates), § 5 (the clerk's examination of an applicant and the forty-eight-hour wait), § 6 (the Marriage License Book), and §§ 14–15 (the certificate where the marriage follows banns, and the minister's penalty) — Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 2532–35. The successive sources are Act of 1777, ch. 12, sec. 5; 1886, ch. 497; and 1937, ch. 91, confirmed at the election of 8 November 1938. Digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--2532.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
16. Code of 1939, art. 62, § 5; carried from 1886, ch. 497, through the codes of 1888 (art. 62, § 5) to 1924 and the acts of 1906, ch. 766, 1920, ch. 549, and 1937, ch. 91 ↩
17. Code of 1939, art. 62, § 6; carried from 1865, ch. 130, through the acts of 1866, 1882, and 1886 and the codes of 1888 (art. 62, § 6) to 1924 ↩
18. Code of 1939, art. 62, § 4 (form of license and of the two certificates); art. 62, § 14, for the certificate on a marriage celebrated after publication of banns, and § 15 for the minister's penalty ↩
19. 1937, ch. 91, carried into Code of 1939, art. 62, § 5; referred to the voters under art. 16 of the Maryland Constitution and adopted at the election of 8 November 1938 ↩
20. At common law the age of consent to marriage was 14 in a male and 12 in a female: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769), bk. 1, ch. 15 (Of Husband and Wife), and bk. 1, ch. 17; digital images, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch15.asp and https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch17.asp : accessed 26 July 2026). Maryland received the rule under Md. Const., Declaration of Rights, art. 5, and laid down no age of its own until 1939, ch. 728, sec. 7, printed as Code of 1939, art. 62, § 7, at p. 2533; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--2533.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
21. For the oath of 1640 and the sequence of consent ages, Maryland State Archives, "Guide to Government Records: Marriage Records," digital images (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=marriage-former : accessed 26 July 2026), and the same office's "Marriage Records: Historical Background" (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=marriage-historical-background : accessed 26 July 2026). The licensing act is 1886, ch. 497, carried into Code of 1888, art. 62, § 7. The consent section was amended by 1920, ch. 549, sec. 7 — the only amendment between 1886 and 1939 — and replaced by 1939, ch. 728, sec. 7. The whole chain is printed in the derivation line above art. 62, § 7 of the Code of 1939: An. Code, 1924, sec. 7; 1912, sec. 7; 1904, sec. 7; 1888, sec. 7; 1886, ch. 497; 1920, ch. 549, sec. 7; 1939, ch. 728, sec. 7 — Archives of Maryland vol. 379, p. 2533; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--2533.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
22. 1939, ch. 728, sec. 7, printed as Code of 1939, art. 62, § 7, at p. 2533; the enforcement duties on clerks and ministers are at § 8 (1939, ch. 728, sec. 7A) and the penalties at § 9 (sec. 7B) ↩
23. Code of 1939, art. 62, §§ 1–2, printing the full table of prohibited degrees ↩
24. 1860, ch. 271, carried as Code of 1939, art. 62, § 3, confirming marriages of a man and his niece, or a woman and her nephew, celebrated before 9 March 1860; Fensterwald v. Burk, 129 Md. 131, 138 (1916), holding such a marriage voidable rather than void ↩
25. Code of 1939, art. 62, § 16, empowering the circuit courts and the criminal court of Baltimore to declare void a marriage within the prohibited degrees or a second marriage made while the first subsisted; carried from An. Code, 1924, sec. 14; 1912, sec. 14; 1904, sec. 14; 1888, sec. 12. The derivation naming 1867, ch. 423 belongs to the following section, § 17, not to this one. Archives of Maryland vol. 379, p. 2535; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--2535.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
26. Act of 1664, "An Act Concerning Negroes and other Slaves" — Archives of Maryland, vol. 1, pp. 533–34, and the legislative record discussed in "Blacks before the Law in Colonial Maryland," ch. 3 ↩
27. Act of 1715, ch. 44, "An Act relating to Servants and Slaves," passed 3 June 1715 — providing that enslaved people and their children shall be enslaved for life, and that baptism did not entitle an enslaved person to freedom; Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, pp. 262–69. The Assembly had revisited the 1664 rule in 1692; on that session see "Blacks before the Law in Colonial Maryland," ch. 3. ↩
28. The repeal of Maryland’s marriage bar took effect 1 June 1967, striking the prohibition on marriages between white Marylanders and Black Marylanders, and on marriages with people the statute described as of the Malay race, together with the penalty on ministers who solemnized them: Act of 1967, ch. 6. The U.S. Supreme Court noted the repeal in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 6 n.5 (1967); digital images, Justia (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/388/1/ : accessed 26 July 2026). The Senate passed the repeal on 9 February 1967 ↩
29. Constitution of 1864, art. 24 of the Declaration of Rights, abolishing slavery; the constitution took effect 1 November 1864. Maryland State Archives, "Constitutional Convention of 1864," digital images (https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc2600/sc2685/html/conv1864.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
30. 1867, ch. 423, printed as Code of 1939, art. 62, § 17; carried from Code of 1888, art. 62, § 13, through Code of 1904, § 15, Code of 1912, § 15, and An. Code 1924, § 15. Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 2535–36; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--2535.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
31. Jones v. Jones, 36 Md. 456 (1872), printed in the annotations to Code of 1939, art. 62, § 17 ↩
32. The Annotated Code of the Public General Laws of Maryland, ed. Horace E. Flack (Baltimore: King Brothers, 1939), art. 3, § 1 (Aliens), at p. 280; Archives of Maryland vol. 379; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--280.html : accessed 26 July 2026). B. H. Hartogensis, "Maryland Statutory Modifications of the Common Law of Real Property," Maryland Law Review 1, no. 3 (1937): 238, 242, dates the disappearance of any distinction between an alien and a citizen in the holding of property to 1874; digital images, DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law (https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=mlr : accessed 26 July 2026). The individual acts by which the disability was lifted between the Revolution and 1874 are collected in the derivation printed under the section ↩
33. Code of 1939, art. 45, §§ 1, 4, 5; carried from Code of 1888, art. 45, § 1, through the acts of 1892, 1898, and 1929 and the codes of 1904, 1912, and 1924 ↩
34. Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, § 58 — no married woman entitled to letters testamentary; letters granted as if she had not been named, unless her husband gave bond ↩
35. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 62, noted in the cross-references to art. 45 ↩
36. Code of 1939, art. 45, § 6; carried from 1818, ch. 193, sec. 10, through Code of 1888, art. 45, § 5, 1898, ch. 457, sec. 6, Code of 1904, § 6, Code of 1912, § 6, and An. Code 1924, § 6 ↩
37. 1916, ch. 325, sec. 3, printed as Code of 1939, art. 46, § 3 ↩
38. Act of 1715, ch. 47, § X — a feme covert barred of estate and of dower only by her examination and acknowledgment with a certificate enrolled upon record, and barred of dower by such acknowledgment even where she is not named in the deed; Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, p. 277. ↩
39. Act of 1752, ch. 8, noted with the 1715 act at Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, p. 277. ↩
40. Act of 1856, ch. 154, § 14, "An Act to Simplify and Abridge the Rules and Forms of Conveyances," passed 8 March 1856 — Laws of Maryland, 1856, p. 254; the volume's own index lists the act as chapter 154 at page 253. digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000623/html/am623--253.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
41. Act of 1856, ch. 154, § 94 (certificate of the acknowledgment of a married woman to a deed conveying her real estate). The words "examination" and feme covert appear nowhere in the act ↩
42. Maryland Code of 1860, art. 24, § 53 (form where a married woman is a party) and § 69 (form of acknowledgment of husband and wife); carried forward as Code of 1939, art. 21, § 73 and § 87; carried from 1856, ch. 154, secs. 86–87, through the acts of 1882 and 1916 and the codes of 1888 (art. 21, §§ 5–6) to 1924 ↩
43. Code of 1939, art. 45, § 13 (Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 1981–94); Hartogensis, "Maryland Statutory Modifications," 244, dating the provision to 1872 ↩
44. Code of 1939, art. 45, § 7; carried from 1898, ch. 457, sec. 7, through Code of 1904, § 7, 1904, ch. 151, Code of 1912, § 7, 1914, ch. 516, 1918, ch. 410, sec. 7, and An. Code 1924, § 7. On the earlier curtesy, see the cases collected in the annotations to that section ↩
45. Code of 1939, art. 21, §§ 72–99 (forms of conveyances, including the deed, the deed where a wife unites, and the forms of acknowledgment within and without the state), and §§ 5–7 (before whom acknowledgments may be taken); the acknowledgment provisions carried from 1856, ch. 154, secs. 86–87, through the codes of 1888 (art. 21, §§ 5–6) to 1924 ↩
46. Code of 1939, art. 21, § 10 (general requisites of a good deed), § 11 (to be signed and sealed by the grantor), and § 16 (acknowledgment and record essential). The sectional analysis of the article at p. 716 lists every requirement of a valid deed, and an attesting witness is not among them; nor does any section fix an age for a person who does witness one. Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 716–57; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--716.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
47. The Maryland Code: Public General Laws and Public Local Laws, comp. Otho Scott and Hiram M’Cullough (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1860), art. 66 — the article gathering the law on free and enslaved people of color, printed under the racial heading used at the time. Archives of Maryland vol. 145; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000145/html/index.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
48. Assessment acts of Nov. term 1781, ch. 4 (for 1782) and Nov. term 1782, ch. 6 (for 1783), as described in Maryland State Archives, "Understanding Maryland Records: Tax Lists & Early Assessments," digital images (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=earlytaxes : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
49. Act of 1786, ch. 45, "An Act to Direct Descents." The annotations to Code of 1939, art. 46, § 1 state that before it the right of primogeniture existed in Maryland as at common law; see Catlin v. Catlin, 60 Md. 575 (1883) ↩
50. Gilpin v. Hollingsworth, 3 Md. 190, 194 (1852) ↩
51. Code of 1939, art. 46, §§ 8–47 (commissioners, notice, division, election by the eldest son and successively, sales by commissioners, and deeds); § 11 for the appointment of a guardian for a minor heir, and § 29 where all the parties are minors ↩
52. 1916, ch. 325, sec. 1, printed as Code of 1939, art. 46, § 1; carried from Code of 1912, § 1, through An. Code 1924, § 1. And see Key v. Key, 134 Md. 419 (1919) ↩
53. Act of 1715, ch. 39, the testamentary act, printed in Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, which carried the distribution of an intestate's personal estate; Maryland had adopted the English law governing the administration of estates in 1704. The formulas are set out in Maryland State Archives, "Understanding Maryland Records: Inheritance of Property" ↩
54. Code of 1939, art. 93, §§ 128–133; carried from Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 11, secs. 1–6, through the codes of 1888 (art. 93, §§ 120–125), 1904, 1912, and 1924 ↩ ↩
55. 1898, ch. 331; the provisions apply where the wife died after 1 January 1899 — Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Gittings, 103 Md. 485, 495 (1906) ↩
56. 1933, ch. 386, amending what became Code of 1939, art. 93, § 130 ↩
57. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 314; Wilson v. Jarrell, 137 Md. 561 (1921), six months from the grant of administration to renounce and elect ↩
58. 1916, ch. 325, sec. 4, printed as Code of 1939, art. 46, § 4; carried from Code of 1912, § 4, through An. Code 1924, § 4 ↩
59. Act of 1715, ch. 39, §§ XVI–XVII, "An Act for the better Administration of Justice in Testamentary Affairs, granting Administrations, Recovery of Legacies" — Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, p. 244. The same act required inventories within three months and accounts within twelve, and gave the widow her election between the devise and her dower. ↩
60. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 152; carried from Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 12, sec. 1, through the acts of 1807, 1829, 1834, and 1888 and the codes of 1888 (art. 93, § 144) to 1924. The same ages appear in the Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, §§ 148 and 200 ↩
61. Act of 1715, ch. 39, § 7, requiring an orphan capable of choosing to be called before the county court and there to choose the guardian into whose hands the estate was committed, and directing the justices to place a younger orphan's person and estate in the hands of trustees under bond; the section is quoted in full in Mauro v. Ritchie, 16 F. Cas. 1171, 1178 (C.C.D.C. 1827); the act itself is in Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large ↩
62. Act of 1763, ch. 24, permitting the court on application to allow an orphan of fourteen to choose a guardian, and to appoint for a child under fourteen, as described in Mauro v. Ritchie, 16 F. Cas. 1171, 1178 (C.C.D.C. 1827), which supplies the chapter number; the act itself is in Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large ↩
63. Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 12, §§ 1–2, empowering the Orphans' Court to appoint a guardian and to appoint until the minor came of age, and to call or have an orphan brought before it for the purpose; Mauro v. Ritchie, 16 F. Cas. 1171, 1179 (C.C.D.C. 1827), holding that the power to appoint until full age left the selection with the court ↩
64. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 154; carried from 1834, ch. 291, sec. 4, through Code of 1888, art. 93, § 146, Code of 1904, § 145, Code of 1912, § 146, and An. Code 1924, § 151 ↩
65. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 153; carried from 1834, ch. 291, sec. 2, through Code of 1888, art. 93, § 145, Code of 1904, § 144, Code of 1912, § 145, and An. Code 1924, § 150 ↩
66. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 161; Sudler v. Sudler, 121 Md. 46, 55 (1913) ↩
67. Code of 1939, art. 46, § 7; carried from 1825, ch. 156, through 1868, ch. 199, Code of 1888, art. 46, § 30, Code of 1904, § 30, Code of 1912, § 30, and An. Code 1924, § 7 ↩
68. Reese v. Starner, 106 Md. 50, 52 (1907); and see Barron v. Zimmerman, 117 Md. 296, 299 (1912), holding that an illegitimate child may inherit from his mother's sister ↩
69. Code of 1939, art. 46, § 6; carried from 1820, ch. 191, sec. 7, through Code of 1888, art. 46, § 29, Code of 1904, § 29, Code of 1912, § 29, and An. Code 1924, § 6. The annotation states that this section sets out the only right of inheritance from the father given an illegitimate child by Maryland statute ↩
70. Hawbecker v. Hawbecker, 43 Md. 516, 518 (1875) ↩
71. Dilworth v. Dilworth, 134 Md. 585, 590 (1919) ↩
72. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 335; carried from Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 1, sec. 3, through Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, § 300, Code of 1888, art. 93, § 309, Code of 1904, § 316, Code of 1912, § 322, and An. Code 1924, § 331 ↩
73. Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 1, § 3, printed as Code of 1939, art. 93, § 335. The section fixes an age for a will of land alone, and requires of every will only that the maker be of sound and disposing mind and capable of making a valid deed or contract. For the common-law ages before 1798 see the reception provision, Md. Const., Declaration of Rights, art. 5 ↩
74. Acts, 1842, ch. 293, and Acts, 1929, ch. 531, printed as Code of 1939, art. 93, § 345 (Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 3361–3507); Hartogensis, "Maryland Statutory Modifications," 249 ↩
75. Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 1, sec. 4, as printed in the Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, § 301 — "three or four credible witnesses" ↩
76. 1884, ch. 293, printed as Code of 1939, art. 93, § 336; carried from Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 1, sec. 4, through 1884, ch. 293, Code of 1888, art. 93, § 310, Code of 1904, § 317, Code of 1912, § 323, and An. Code 1924, § 332. Tabler v. Tabler, 62 Md. 601, 615 (1884), holds that the 1884 act placed wills of real estate and of personal property on the same footing ↩ ↩
77. Bartlett v. Ligon, 135 Md. 620, 625 (1920); sec. 2 of the 1884 act had saved wills of personal property executed before 1 August 1884, but that saving was omitted from the Code of 1888 ↩
78. Code of 1939, art. 93, § 336, requiring every will to be attested and signed by two or more credible witnesses in the testator's presence. Article 93 carries no provision for a will written wholly in the testator's own hand, and Maryland has never admitted an unwitnessed will made in the state; the single exception in the modern law, for a member of the armed services signing outside the United States, is later than this period and is now Md. Code, Est. & Trusts, § 4-103 ↩
79. Estep v. Morris, 38 Md. 417, 423 (1873); Higgins v. Carlton, 28 Md. 115, 140 (1867) ↩
80. Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, § 57, for 18 under the codes; Act of 1715, ch. 39, which treats an executor or administrator under 17 as an infant, printed in Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, p. 244 ↩
81. Maryland Code of 1860, art. 93, § 57 (burden of proving a named executor under 18), § 67 (administration durante minoritate lasts until the executor attains 18), and § 69 (the grant of letters testamentary revokes it and the temporary administrator accounts and delivers over); bond recorded under § 75 ↩
82. Act of 1715, ch. 15, "An Act for Appointment of Constables, and what relates to their Office" — Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, April 26–June 3, 1715, Archives of Maryland vol. 30, p. 276; chapter number from Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, p. 210. digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000030/html/am30--276.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
83. Act of 1715, ch. 15, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, Archives of Maryland vol. 30, pp. 275–76; the supplementary act of 1719, ch. 12 added that sheriffs return lists of taxables. ↩
84. Act of 1715, ch. 15, as above, which names female slaves alone among women. For the levying of free women of color and the county-court orders relieving them, see Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware: Thomas Rustin petitioned the Charles County court in 1750 to have his wife Lucy declared levy-free for the future, and the Queen Anne's County court declared Sarah Bentley levy-free on 12 December 1770 ↩
85. Maryland State Archives, "Understanding Maryland Records: Tax Lists & Early Assessments," on female heads of household appearing as the person paying; digital images (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=earlytaxes : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
86. Md. Declaration of Rights (1776), art. XIII — that levying taxes by the poll is grievous and oppressive and ought to be abolished, and that paupers ought not to be assessed for the support of government. The provision survives, in amended words, as art. 15 of the present Declaration of Rights, which reads "ought to be prohibited"; the article was amended by ch. 390, Acts of 1914. Maryland General Assembly (https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/Constitution : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
87. Act of Feb. term 1777, ch. 21 (rate of 10 shillings per £100 for 1777 and 1778); Nov. term 1781, ch. 4; Nov. term 1782, ch. 6 ↩
88. Maryland State Archives, "Understanding Maryland Records: Tax Lists & Early Assessments," on the statutory definition of a pauper and the exempted classes; digital images (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=earlytaxes : accessed 26 July 2026). The definition is set by the assessment acts of Nov. term 1781, ch. 4, and Nov. term 1782, ch. 6 ↩
89. Assessment acts of Nov. term 1781, ch. 4, and Nov. term 1782, ch. 6, on persons "principled against bearing arms or contributing property for supporting any war," quoted in Maryland State Archives, "Understanding Maryland Records: Tax Lists & Early Assessments"; digital images (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=earlytaxes : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
90. Code of 1939, art. 81, § 109 et seq. (inheritance tax), in the revenue article at Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 3017–3136 ↩
91. 1929, ch. 275, printed as Code of 1939, art. 62A (Maryland Estate Tax), Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 2537–41 ↩
92. Maryland State Archives, "Understanding Maryland Records: Tax Lists & Early Assessments" — tax assessments were based on the value of real and personal property, and most are found among county records; digital images (https://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=earlytaxes : accessed 26 July 2026). The property tax as it stood at the end of this period is Code of 1939, art. 81 (Revenue and Taxes), Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 3017–3136. For the federal levy of 1798 see 1798 Federal Direct Tax — Maryland, Archives of Maryland, vol. 729, which reproduces the extant Maryland lists; digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000729/html/index.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
93. The income tax was laid by 1937, ch. 11 of the extraordinary session, and the rate replaced by 1939, ch. 277; both are printed in the session volumes for those years, digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/ : accessed 26 July 2026), and the tax as it stood at the end of this period is Code of 1939, art. 81, §§ 216–79. For the dates and rates see Department of Legislative Services, Maryland's Revenue Structure (Annapolis: Department of Legislative Services, 2015), 11; digital images, Department of Legislative Services Library (https://dlslibrary.state.md.us/publications/OPA/P/MRS_2015.pdf : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
94. Code of 1939, art. 51, § 1 (Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 2208–19); carried from 1797, ch. 87, sec. 5, through Code of 1888, art. 51, § 1, Code of 1904, § 1, Code of 1912, § 1, and An. Code 1924, § 1 ↩
95. Hollars v. State, 125 Md. 367, 370 (1915) ↩
96. Code of 1939, art. 51, § 4; carried from 1777, ch. 15, sec. 10, through 1812, ch. 178, Code of 1888, art. 51, § 4, Code of 1904, § 4, Code of 1912, § 4, and An. Code 1924, § 4 ↩
97. Code of 1939, art. 51, § 6; carried from 1867, ch. 329, sec. 1, through the codes of 1888 (art. 51, § 6) to 1924 and some fifteen amending acts between 1870 and 1933 ↩
98. Code of 1939, art. 51, § 3; carried from 1715, ch. 37, sec. 4, through 1797, ch. 87, sec. 7, 1858, ch. 139, Code of 1888, art. 51, § 3, Code of 1904, § 3, Code of 1912, § 3, 1912, ch. 737, and An. Code 1924, § 3. And see Green v. State, 59 Md. 123, 125 (1882), holding the provision an exemption the juror may waive rather than a disability ↩
99. Code of 1939, art. 51, § 2; carried from 1832, ch. 170, through Code of 1888, art. 51, § 2, Code of 1904, § 2, Code of 1912, § 2, and An. Code 1924, § 2 ↩
100. Code of 1939, art. 51, §§ 9 and 15 ↩
101. Act of 1947, ch. 595 (Senate Bill 99), adding § 6A to art. 51 of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1939 edition), title "Juries," sub-title "Qualification and Selection of Jurors"; approved 10 April 1947, effective 1 June 1947 — Laws of Maryland, 1947, p. 1495. digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000411/html/am411--1495.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
102. Act of 1947, ch. 595, § 6A, final sentence, naming Allegany, Calvert, Carroll, Charles, Garrett, Queen Anne's, Talbot, Worcester, Howard, St. Mary's, Kent and Washington Counties ↩
103. Laws of Maryland, 1959, ch. 47, amending art. 51, sub-title "Qualification and Selection of Jurors," as to jury service by women in Garrett, Howard, and Worcester Counties, p. 54. digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000642/html/am642--54.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
104. The ages of criminal capacity are common law, received in Maryland under Md. Const., Declaration of Rights, art. 5, and left unaltered by art. 27 of the Code of 1939 (Crimes and Punishments), which fixes no minimum age. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769), bk. 4, ch. 2 (Of the Persons Capable of Committing Crimes) — an infant under seven cannot be guilty, between seven and fourteen incapacity is presumed and may be rebutted by proof that the child could discern between good and evil, and at fourteen he answers as an adult; digital images, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch2.asp : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
105. Code of 1939, art. 26, §§ 49–59 (minors without proper care or guardianship; the Magistrate for Juvenile Causes in Baltimore City and the counties, and his jurisdiction at § 58); carried from 1916, ch. 674, through Code of 1912, §§ 63–73, An. Code 1924, §§ 63–73, and 1931, ch. 323 ↩
106. Code of 1939, art. 35 (Evidence), Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 1585–1615. The sectional analysis at p. 1585 sets out every ground of incompetency the article recognizes — interest, crime, the position of husband and wife, and the like — and none of them is founded on age, so a child's competency was left to the trial court. Digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000379/html/am379--1585.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
107. Code of 1939, art. 35, § 1 (Archives of Maryland vol. 379, pp. 1585–1615); carried from 1864, ch. 109, sec. 1, through Code of 1888, art. 35, § 1, Code of 1904, § 1, Code of 1912, § 1, and An. Code 1924, § 1 ↩
108. Turpin v. State, 55 Md. 462, 475 (1881) ↩
109. Code of 1939, art. 35, § 4; carried from 1864, ch. 109, sec. 3, through the acts of 1876 and 1888 and the codes of 1888 (art. 35, § 3) to 1924 ↩
110. Act of 1717, ch. 13, "A Supplementary Act to the Act relating to Servants and Slaves" (supplementing 1715, ch. 44), passed 8 June 1717 — reciting that it would be of dangerous consequence to admit the testimony of enslaved or free people of color, or of Native people, and enacting that none be received in evidence in any matter wherein a Christian white person is concerned; but providing that where other sufficient evidence is wanting against such a person, their testimony may be heard at the court's discretion. The act uses the racial vocabulary of its day throughout. Text at Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1717, Archives of Maryland vol. 33, p. 111; chapter number from Bacon, Laws of Maryland at Large, p. 299. Digital images, Archives of Maryland Online (https://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000033/html/am33--111.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
111. 1864, ch. 109, as above; the section frames competency in terms of interest and conviction and names no racial disqualification ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.