Prince George County was created in 1696 (Chapter 13, acts of 1695) and was formed from Charles and Calvert Counties. The County was named for Prince George of Denmark was husband to Queen Anne I of Great Britain.. The County Seat is Upper Marlboro.
Prince George's County, located on the state's western shore. Like other southern Maryland counties, tobacco has always been an important crop in Prince George's County. Upper Marlboro, the county seat since 1721, has always been a tobacco marketing center. During the eighteenth century, shallow draft boats carried hogsheads of tobacco from the town down Western Branch to the Patuxent River, where ocean-going vessels anchored. From 1748 until about 1818, all locally grown tobacco was inspected here at a public warehouse before shipment overseas.
The history of Prince George's County is reflected in the numerous historic houses and sites located in the county. A few of the historic houses to be seen in the county are Bel air Mansion, the home of Samuel Ogle, who served three terms as provincial of Maryland, and his son Benjamin Ogle, governor of Maryland from 1798-1801; Montpelier, one of the famous five part houses in Maryland; and the Surratt House, where in March of 1865 John Surratt and fellow conspirators hid guns and ammunition as part of a plot to kidnap Lincoln. The county is also the home of the University of Maryland College Park campus, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Andrews Air Force Base. See also County History for more historical details.
Prince George's County Cities Include Bowie, College Park, District Heights, Glenarden, Greenbelt, Hyattsville, Laurel, Mount Rainier, New Carrollton, Seat Pleasant. Towns Include Berwyn Heights, Bladensburg, Brentwood, Capitol Heights, Cheverly, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, Eagle Harbor, Edmonston, Fairmount Heights, Forest Heights, Landover Hills, Morningside, North Brentwood, Riverdale Park, University Park, Upper Marlboro. Communities Include Aquasco, Ardmore, Avondale, Berwyn, Carole Highlands, Cedar Heights, Cheltenham, Green Meadow, Lewisdale, Montpelier, North College Park, North Englewood, Rogers Heights, South Bowie, Tuxedo, West Bowie, West Hyattsville. Localities Include Chapel Oaks, Muirkirk. (Unincorporated areas are also considered as towns by many people and listed in many collections of towns, but they lack local government.)
Various organizations, such as the United States Census Bureau, the United States Postal Service, and local chambers of commerce, define the communities they wish to recognize differently, and since they are not incorporated, their boundaries have no official status outside the organizations in question. The Census Bureau recognizes the following census-designated places in the county: Accokeek, Adelphi, Andrews Air Force Base, Beltsville, Brandywine, Calverton, Camp Springs, Carmody Hills-Pepper Mill Village, Chillum, Clinton, Collington, Coral Hills, East Riverdale, Forestville, Fort Washington, Friendly, Glenn Dale, Goddard, Greater Landover, Greater Upper Marlboro, Hillandale, Hillcrest Heights, Kettering, Lake Arbor, Langley Park, Lanham-Seabrook, Largo, Marlow Heights, Marlton, Mitchellville, Oxon Hill-Glassmanor, Rosaryville, South Laurel, Springdale, Suitland-Silver Hill, Temple Hills, Walker Mill, West Laurel, Woodlawn, Woodmore
PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information.
Government records of Prince George County are available in Original , Microfilm and Digital formats from the Maryland State Archives The Official County website is located at http://www.co.pg.md.us. See also Courthouse History. NOTE: The record dates below are from the earliest date to present time.
Prince George County Register of Wills/ Clerk of Orphan's Court has Probate Records from 1698 and is located at 5303 Chrysler Way,
Suite 300,
Upper Marlboro, MD 20772; Main Number: (301) 952-3250,
Fax: (301) 952-4489,
Toll Free: (888) 464-4219 (MD only) The Register of Wills is responsible for appointing personal representatives to administer decedents estates and for overseeing the proper and timely administration of these proceedings. We also perform the following duties: assist and advise the public in the preparation of all required forms; maintain and preserve the permanent record of all proceedings; serve as the Clerk to the Orphans Court; track estates and refer delinquent matters to the Court; determine and collect inheritance taxes and probate fees/court costs; audit accounts of personal representatives and guardians; and, verify compliance with court orders.
Prince George County Circuit Court Clerk has Land Records from 1696 and Marriage Records from earliest to 1919 and is located at 14735 Main Street,
Upper Marlboro, MD 20772;
(301) 952-4576 The Clerk's responsibilities include supervising Clerk's office personnel in the civil, criminal, courtroom clerks, business license, marriage license, land records, and juvenile units.
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Court Records by clicking the link below:
Maryland Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.
Click Here to Search Maryland Birth, Marriage & Death Records! - Birth, marriage, and death records are connected with central life events. They are prime sources for genealogical information. Look also for baptism, christening, and burial records in this collection.
Division of Vital Records Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, 6550 Reisterstown Rd., Reistertown Road Plaza, Baltimore, MD 21215; (410) 764-3038 or (800), 832-3277,
Fax: (410) 358-0738. The Division of Vital Records of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issues certified copies of birth, death, fetal death, and marriage certificates for events that occur in Maryland. The Division also provides divorce verifications. The Division provides information on procedures to follow for registering an adoption, legitimation, or an adjudication of paternity.
Birth Certificates: The state of Maryland began issuing certificates for births since Aug 1898. Birth certificates for individuals born in Maryland after 1939 are also available for same day service at local health departments in all jurisdictions except Montgomery County, Baltimore City, and Baltimore County. The State of Maryland Archives has Birth certificates since 1875 for Baltimore City and 1898 for Maryland counties.
Cost: $12.00 per certificate, payment is payable to the Division of Vital Records. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $12.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Death Certificates:The state of Maryland began issuing certificates for deaths since since 1969. Within 30 days of a death, copies of the record may also be obtained from the local health department in which the funeral director filed the death certificate, with the exception of Baltimore City and Baltimore County health departments. You must apply in person at the appropriate local health department. The State of Maryland Archives has Death certificates prior to 1969.
Cost: $12.00 per certificate, payment is payable to the Division of Vital Records. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $12.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Marriage Certificates: The state of Maryland began issuing certificates for marriage since since Jan 1, 1990. The State of Maryland Archives has Marriage certificates since 1640.
Marriage Certificates are availible since before Jan 1, 1990 from the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county where the license was issued.
Cost: $12.00 from the Division of Vital Records, payment is payable to the Division of Vital Records. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $12.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail. Contact the Maryland Archives and the Clerk of the Circuit Court for fees.
Divorce Certificates: The Division of Vital Records issues verification only since Jan 1961. Certified copies should be available from the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county where the divorce was granted. Fees vary.
Cost: $12.00 from the Division of Vital Records, payment is payable to the Division of Vital Records. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $12.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail. Contact the Clerk of the Circuit Court for fees.
Order Online: You can also order Order Electronically and get the certificates within 2-5 days by ordering below
Processing Time: Allow 3 to 6 weeks for the search
by mail for Birth, Marriage, Divorce or Death Records. MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY.
Order In Person: Birth certificates for individuals with valid, government-issued photo identification who were born in Maryland are available for same day service at the Division of Vital Records in Baltimore. Same day service is also available at local health departments in all jurisdictions except Montgomery County, Baltimore City, and Baltimore County for individuals born after 1939. Order By Mail: Turn around is estimated at 3 to 6 weeks from the day the request is received. However, people are urged to allow sufficient time for delivery for all birth/death records. Mail a check or money order of $12.00 for each certified certificate. Do not send cash. Mail to the following address: The Division of Vital Records, 6550 Reisterstown Road, Reisterstown Road Plaza, Baltimore, MD 21215. Please include return address on envelope and application form.
The Maryland State Archives maintains many records that are invaluable for biographical and genealogical research. These include birth records, adoption records, marriage records, divorce records, and death records, and some indices to these records.
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Vital Records. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Vital Records by clicking the link below:
Search the Social Security Death Index for FREE - Search over 82 million death records and get genealogical information crucial to your family research. New content added weekly! Most comprehensive SSDI site online!
Research Death records In The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of historical Maryland newspaper articles about deaths. Search for local articles about an old family friend that died many years ago or a celebrity that committed suicide. Historical newspapers contain a wealth of information about the deceased.
Click Here to Search Maryland Voter Lists & Census Records! - Few, if any, records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do government census records. Substitute records can be used when the official census is unavailable.
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Census Records. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Census Records by clicking the link below:
Maryland Census, 1772-1890: This collection contains the following indexes: 1790 Federal Census Index; 1800 Federal Census Index; 1810 Federal Census Index; 1820 Federal Census Index; 1830 Federal Census Index; 1840 Federal Census Index; 1840 Pensioners List; 1850 Federal Census Index; 1850 Slave Schedules; 1860 Federal Census Index; 1860 Slave Schedules; 1890 Naval Veterans; Early Census Index.
Maryland Colonial Census, 1776: Granted by the King of England to George Calvert in 1632, Maryland was home to nearly 300,000 people before the Revolutionary War. This database is a transcription of a colonial census taken in 1776.
Genealogy Atlas has images of old American atlases during the years 1795, 1814, 1822, 1823, 1836, 1838, 1845, 1856, 1866, 1879 and 1897 for Ohio and other states.
You can view rotating animated maps for Maryland showing all the county boundaries for each census year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states at Census Maps
You can view rotating animated maps for Maryland showing all the county boundary changes for each year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. The Maryland Department of Transportation has county maps the show the locations of churches, cemeteries, roads, ect... free for viewing or download here
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Maps. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Maps by clicking the link below:
Click Here to Search Maryland Military Records! - Military and civil service records provide unique facts and insights into the lives of men and women who have served their country at home and abroad.
The uses and value of military records in genealogical research for ancestors who were veterans are obvious, but military records can also be important to re-searchers whose direct ancestors were not soldiers in any war. The fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and other close relatives of an ancestor may have served in a war, and their service or pension records could contain information that will assist in further identifying the family of primary interest. Due to the amount of genealogical information contained in some military pension files, they should never be overlooked during the research process. Those records not containing specific genealogical information are of historic value and should be included in any overall research design.
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Military Records. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Military Records by clicking the link below:
Maryland Military Men, 1917-18: This database is a massive collection of military records for men who served in the war from Maryland.
Maryland Revolutionary War Records: This database is a collection of pension and bounty land claims on the state for military service in the war.
Maryland Soldiers in the Civil War, Vol. 1: With over 36,000 records of soldiers, sailors and marines in the Union Army and Navy from 1861 to 1865, this database is of interest to anyone with ancestors from Maryland who served in the Civil War.
Maryland Soldiers in the Civil War, Vol. 2: The second volume in a two-volume series, this volume embraces all of the sailors, marines and other troops from Maryland who served in the Union army or navy.
Southern Claims Commission from the State of Maryland (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents In the 1870s, southerners claimed compensation from the U.S. government for items used by the Union Army, ranging from corn and horses, to trees and church buildings.
Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 from the State of Maryland (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents in NARA publication M246 include muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns, and other miscellaneous personnel, pay, and supply records of American Army units, 1775-83.
Available at the Maryland State Archives with index is a Maryland tax assessment of 1783, which is “more complete” than the 1776 or 1778 “censuses”. Robert W. Barnes and Bettie Stirling Carothers abstracted the 1783 tax list of Baltimore County, Maryland but while it has some omissions, it serves as an index to photocopies of the originals published as Maryland Tax List 1783 Baltimore County from the collection of the Maryland Historical Society (Philadelphia: Historic Publications, 1970). The counties of Calvert, Cecil, Harford, and Talbot are covered by Bettie Carothers, comp., 1783 Tax List of Maryland (Part I: Cecil, Talbot, Harford, and Calvert Counties) (Lutherville, Md.: Pub. by compiler, 1977). Furthermore, there is a two part index to the 1783 list at the state archives, one by names of property owners, the other by names of the tracts.
The earliest tax records are to be found among the proprietary papers, dating from the 1630s. Some early tax records have been published, such as Raymond B. Clark, Jr., and Sara Seth Clark, comps., Baltimore County, Maryland, tax list, 1699-1706. At the Maryland State Archives is a tax list for St. Anne's Parish, Anne Arundel County, 1764-66. Also here are the surviving 1798 U.S. direct tax records, for Anne Arundel County (indexed), Baltimore County and City, and the counties of Caroline, Charles, Harford, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, Saint Mary's, Somerset, and Talbot. Richard J. Cox edited Name Index to the Baltimore City Tax Records: 1798-1808 Of the Baltimore City Archives, (Baltimore: Baltimore City Archives and Records Management Office, 1981).
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Tax Records by clicking the link below:
The Repositories
in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical
and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical
Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly,
quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies
should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are
usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived
materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be
more generalized and over look the smaller details that local
societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to
look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy
section and may have some resources that are not located at
archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums
in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years
gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All
these places are vitally important to the family genealogist
and must not be passed over.
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:
Maryland Genealogical Society, 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-4674. Publishes the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin Quarterly.
The Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201-4674 Has published a quarterly magazine Maryland Historical Magazinefor over 90 years
Maryland Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
Click Here to Search Maryland Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.
A search for church records should begin with Directory of Maryland church records (Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1987), arranged by county and giving a range of dates of available records for over 2,600 churches with mailing addresses. Also helpful are The First Parishes of the Province of Maryland (Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Co., 1923).
The largest collection of church records is at the Maryland State Archives, with a consolidated index, and many are at the Maryland State Archives, which has various original and microfilmed records, many with indexes. Some church records have been published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin or in individual books, such as those for St. Paul's in Baltimore and for many German churches in the western counties.
Although Catholicism is very important to the history of Maryland, the disenfranchisement of Catholics after the establishment of the Anglican church in 1692 largely contributed to the lack of record keeping prior to the Revolutionary War. One source for St. Marys County in the 1700s, however, is Catholic Families of Southern Maryland: Records of Catholic Residents of St. Mary's County in the Eighteenth Century (1980; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985). Records of the German churches and the Society of Friends are very good. The latter were early settlers of Maryland, along with Anglicans and Catholics. Quaker records in Maryland, (Annapolis: Hall of Records Commission, 1966) is an excellent guide to the original and microfilmed Friends' records at the Maryland State Archives. Some Quaker records were published in Kenneth Carroll, Quakerism on the Eastern Shore (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1970) and other records are at the Maryland Historical Society, the state archives, and the Friends Historical Library in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
The Maryland State Archives has indexes to cemetery records for various time periods. Some have been published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin and other journals and in individual works covering large parts of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Dorchester, Frederick, Garrett, St. Marys, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. A great number of grave marker inscriptions have been transcribed by members of the Maryland DAR and will be found at the Maryland Historical Society and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C. See also Historic graves of Maryland and the District of Columbia (1908; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1967).
Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:
Find Obituaries in The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of Maryland obituaries to help you research your family history. Search for a Maryland newspaper obituary about your ancestor or a celebrity. Begin your search today and find death notices and funeral announcements printed in newspapers from Maryland.
Click Here to Search Maryland Family Tree Records! - The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.
When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Prince George County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Prince George County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:
Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
Maryland Family & Local History Records - The Family & Local Histories Collection lets you read journals, memoirs, and other first-hand historical narratives right on your computer. Gathered from some of the world's finest libraries, these materials may provide hard-to-find town, county, and state information; tax records and wills; military, church, and court records; as well as photographs, stories, and maps.
No one is sure when people first set foot in Prince George's County. Some archaeologists believe the first Indians came to Southern Maryland 10,000 years ago; others would say it was long before that. Whatever the case, this land was occupied for thousands of years before the first Europeans sailed to these shores. The first recorded visit to Prince George's County by a European came in the summer of 1608, when Captain John Smith sailed up the Potomac River, probably as far as Great Falls. Two groups of Indians inhabited the county in Smith's time the Piscataways, whose villages ranged from the Anacostia River southward into Charles and St. Mary's counties and the warlike Susquehannocks, who roamed and hunted in the northern part of the county, constantly pressing the Piscataways for more and more land.
John Smith's visit in 1608 was an exploring expedition only no settlement was intended. Over the next 25 years, English traders paid frequent calls upon the Indians here, sometimes to trade, sometimes to fight. But the most significant early contact came in 1634, just days after the first Maryland colonists landed near the mouth of the Potomac River. Advised by an English trader to seek permission from the Piscataways before establishing a settlement there, Governor Leonard Calvert sailed up the Potomac to the tribe's principal town, located on Piscataway Creek in the southern part of Prince George's County. Governor Calvert established good relations with the Piscataways, and with their permission he returned downriver to found St. Mary's City, Maryland's first settlement.
The Maryland colony flourished at St. Mary's City and enjoyed peaceful relations with the neighboring Indian tribes. Settlers soon left the confines of the original settlement. New counties were created, and within 30 years farms and plantations lined both the Patuxent and Potomac Rivers well into the land we call Prince George's County today. The land was not called Prince George's County then, however. The area along the Patuxent was part of Calvert County; the area along the Potomac was part of Charles County. By 1695, sixteen or seventeen hundred people lived here enough, Governor Francis Nicholson thought, to deserve the right of self-government. The General Assembly agreed, and on St. George's Day, April 23, 1696, a new county was established, named for Prince George of Denmark, husband of the heir to the throne of England, Princess Anne. Extending from the Charles County line on the south all the way to the Pennsylvania border, the new county marked Maryland's western frontier. It remained the frontier county until 1748, when the westernmost regions were granted their own government, and Prince George's County's northern boundary became basically the line it is today.
Prince George's County grew in the 1700's. Its land was settled, and frontier became civilization. Men and women from all parts of the British Isles, as well as other countries of Europe, came to find homes here. Some came as freemen, others as indentured servants. Africans were also a part of the growing population, brought here to work as slaves. As the years went by, trading centers along the rivers grew into towns places like Marlborough, Nottingham, Bladensburg, Queen Anne, and Piscataway. Merchants built stores; lawyers and doctors established practices; clergymen consecrated churches; and innkeepers opened their doors to travelers and residents alike. Some iron was even mined and worked in the upper Patuxent region. But Prince George's County, despite this growth, remained predominantly agricultural. Agriculture was the basis of the economy and directly or indirectly provided the livelihood for every resident. One crop was at the heart of this agricultural economy and that crop was tobacco.
Tobacco created wealth for Prince George's County, wealth that built fine plantation homes, educated the children of the leading families, supported the work of our religious faiths including Maryland's established church, the Church of England and fostered the arts such as theater, dance, and music that flourished in Upper Marlborough and other places. That wealth also provided the means to enjoy leisure time in activities such as theater, dance, and music that flourished in Upper Marlborough and other places. That wealth also provided the means to enjoy leisure time in activities such as cricket, fox hunting, and horseracing and enabled planters to devote such care to their horses and their breeding that Prince George's County became the cradle of American thoroughbred racing, a sport still very much a part of our county today. Tobacco, too, provided modest livelihoods for smaller farmers, and even served as legal tender for debts. That one crop contributed more to Prince George's County than anything else, and created a prosperous, sophisticated tobacco society which traded its staple with English and Scottish merchants for goods from all over the world.
The tobacco society that was Prince George's County was not untouched by the great tide of national events during those years. When the Revolution came, Prince Georgians organized county committees to assist the Revolutionary effort here at home; and they sent many of their sons to fight gallantly for the cause of independence. One of their fellow citizens, John Rogers of Upper Marlboro, sat in the Continental Congress which in July of 1776 voted to make the colonies free and independent states. A Prince George's County native, Daniel Carroll, was one of the signers of the U.S. Constitution. In 1790, when the Congress in Philadelphia decided to locate the new federal capital somewhere along the Potomac River, Prince George's County ceded most of the land necessary to establish the District of Columbia. Today, each of the great symbols of our three branches of government the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court building stands on land that was once part of Prince George's County. The development of the federal city was aided immeasurably by Benjamin Stoddart of Bladensburg, who acquired much of the land needed by the federal government from local landowners and later served as the first Secretary of the Navy. And as American religion began an independent life of its own in the new nation, two Prince Georgeans were chosen to assume roles of leadership. John Carroll of Upper Marlboro became the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States, and Thomas John Claggett of Croom became the first Episcopal bishop consecrated in this country. When the American Catholic Church formulated its first constitution, it met at White Marsh, one of the oldest Catholic establishments in Maryland.
The county had been spared extensive military action during the Revolutionary War, but such was not to be the case in the War of 1812. In August 1814, the British sailed up the Patuxent to Benedict and began a march through Prince George's County through Nottingham, Upper Marlboro and Forestville all the way to Bladensburg, where they defeated an ill-prepared army of American defenders and marched on into Washington to burn the capital city. On their way back to their ships, they seized a Prince Georgian, Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, and took him with them to Baltimore. Francis Scott Key was on a mission to plead for Dr. Beanes' release when he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry and wrote the poem which became our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.
Those early years of the nineteenth century brought changes to the county, too. Although tobacco remained predominant, farmers throughout the county began to experiment with new crops on worn out land. In 1817, the first county agricultural society in Maryland was founded here in Prince George's County, and agriculturalists such as Charles B. Calvert, Horace Capron, and Dr. John Bayne attracted national attention with their agricultural experimentation. The location of the nation's first research agricultural college here in the 1850's further attests to the leadership of Prince George's County in that field.
New developments were not limited to agriculture. A new way of working involving great machines, mass production, and hundreds of workers had evolved in England and the North during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This new way of working known as the Industrial Revolution crept into Prince George's County across its northern border with the establishment of cotton mills at Laurel in the 1820's. Further evidence of change came with the laying of the first rail line across the county in the 1830's and the stringing of the nation's first telegraph line across Prince George's County a decade later. In politics, two sons of Prince George's County achieved national distinction in those early years of the nineteenth century. Gabriel Duvall of Marietta sat for many years on the Supreme Court, and William Wirt, a Bladensburg native, served for 12 years as Attorney General of the United States.
Prince George's County, then, as the nineteenth century passed its midpoint, was prosperous. Its agriculture was diversifying, some industry was developing, the fisheries of the Patuxent and Potomac yielded rich harvests, steamboats plied the Patuxent linking the County to Baltimore, while proximity to Washington afforded a second market, and above all, the growth of the staple crop, tobacco, remained a profitable enterprise. In fact, more tobacco was grown here than in any other county in Maryland, and more slaves tilled the fields here than in any other place in the state.
The labor of Prince George's County's black community 90 percent of it slave in 1860, and comprising almost 60 percent of the total population helped guarantee that prosperity. But the old tobacco society was to end, for forces beyond the control of any Prince Georgian would soon plunge the nation into a bitter Civil War. When that war was ended, the old Prince George's County was gone, and the county began a second life.
Some changes were immediately noticeable, such as the freeing of the slaves. Others were more gradual, like the changes in the county's economy. Agriculture remained the predominant way of life, tobacco continued to be the most important crop, and the large plantations by no means vanished; but as the nineteenth century drew to a close, small farms growing tobacco and a good many other crops played a larger role in the county's economic life. Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, the number of farms in Prince George's County doubled, while the average farm size decreased dramatically. Many of these new smaller farms were operated by freed blacks, but many more were owned by newcomers to the county. As our agricultural population grew, so did commercial life and the importance of local commerce in the overall economic picture. Better roads and better rail service encouraged the growth of new towns places like Suitland, Lanham, Glenn Dale, Huntington, Hyattsville, College Park, and Brandywine. As Prince George's County entered the twentieth century, its population was 30,000 30 percent higher than it had been in 1860. But this second life of Prince George's County of small farmers and local commerce soon gave way to a force that would affect this county as profoundly as tobacco had in the old days. That force was the growing, expanding federal government, and more particularly, its growing, expanding capital city, Washington.
Until the 1880's Washington was not much more than a small town tucked into one corner of the District of Columbia. There was much more farmland in the District than city. People had settled in Prince George's County because of its proximity to the capital; but on the whole, they were a small percentage of the population. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, however, the town of Washington became a city-growing larger and larger until it spread into Prince George's County. All along the county's borders with the District, towns were built -- like Takoma Park, Mount Rainier, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, Brentwood, Capitol Heights, Fairmount Heights, and Seat Pleasant. Farming remained the way of life for many in the vast rural areas beyond these new towns, but year by year the percentage of the population earning their livelihood through agriculture declined as the denser suburban population close to Washington grew. The federal government itself moved out beyond Washington, as huge government installations were placed in Prince George's County Andrews Air Force Base, the Census Bureau complex in Suitland, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center , and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, among others. As the twentieth century progressed and the automobile freed suburban commuters from rail, trolley, and bus lines, new communities grew farther out Greenbelt, Cheverly, District Heights, New Carrollton, Glenarden, Bowie, Kettering, and more. What had been a county of 30,000 in 1900 became a county of 60,000 in 1930. By 1950, there were almost 200,000 people. Ten years later, in 1960, there were 350,000; in 10 years more, 661,000. But finally the explosive growth seemed to come to an end, as the next 10 years saw a small decline.
The end of the population boom seemed to bring a new assessment of Prince George's County's place in the region, for county leaders in the 1970s and early 1980s began to seek a new type of growth an economic life not so closely tied to the federal government, and one not limited to providing homes for workers in Washington. What they began to seek was industry and commercial enterprise that would assume a life of its own in Prince George's County and transform the county from a bedroom suburb into an equal partner in a dynamic metropolitan area. The challenge of that search is as formidable, adventuresome, and exciting as the taming of the frontier so many years ago.
The witness of 300 years, then, has seen great change come to Prince George's County. Once a struggling wilderness outpost where men like Colonel Ninean Beall and his county militia rode the frontier to guard against Indian raids the county developed during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries into a prosperous, sophisticated tobacco society. When that society met its end in war, the small farm, growing tobacco and other crops, and local commerce became the dominant ways of life, until Prince George's County finally became part of the growing metropolitan areas of Washington, D.C. and a place where men and women of all creeds, religions, races, national origins, and economic positions live and work.
But despite these great changes, reminders of the past are all around us -- sometimes hidden from sight, and sometimes unrecognizable to the newcomer. Even if the large majority of our citizens live in an urban setting today, it must be remembered that much of our land still retains its rural character, and agriculture is still the way of life for many. If Prince Georgians of today head out of the city, beyond the Beltway and suburban developments into the large areas that are still country, they can walk into the woods or along the creeks and rivers and see, if for just a moment, a Prince George's County that the first settlers might have seen more than 300 years ago.
but while it has some omissions, it serves as an index to photocopies of the originals published as Maryland Tax List 1783 Baltimore County from the collection of the Maryland Historical Society (Philadelphia: Historic Publications, 1970). The counties of Calvert, Cecil, Harford, and Talbot are covered by Bettie Carothers, comp., 
(Lutherville, Md.: Pub. by compiler, 1977). Furthermore, there is a two part index to the 1783 list at the state archives, one by names of property owners, the other by names of the tracts.
. At the Maryland State Archives is a tax list for St. Anne's Parish, Anne Arundel County, 1764-66. Also here are the surviving 1798 U.S. direct tax records, for Anne Arundel County (indexed), Baltimore County and City, and the counties of Caroline, Charles, Harford, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, Saint Mary's, Somerset, and Talbot. Richard J. Cox edited 
, (Baltimore: Baltimore City Archives and Records Management Office, 1981).
(Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1987), arranged by county and giving a range of dates of available records for over 2,600 churches with mailing addresses. Also helpful are 
(Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Co., 1923).
(1980; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985). Records of the German churches and the Society of Friends are very good. The latter were early settlers of Maryland, along with Anglicans and Catholics. 
(Annapolis: Hall of Records Commission, 1966) is an excellent guide to the original and microfilmed Friends' records at the Maryland State Archives. Some Quaker records were published in Kenneth Carroll, 
(Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1970) and other records are at the Maryland Historical Society, the state archives, and the Friends Historical Library in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
(1908; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1967).
