St Mary County, Maryland Genealogical Records Information

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St Mary County History and Information

St Mary County Facts

St Mary County was created in 1637 and was formed as an Original County. The County was named for The first in a colony intended to be a Catholic haven, it was named for the Virgin Mary. The County Seat is Leonardtown. The Courthouse was destroyed in 1831 by fire. Some deeds were re-recordred back to 1781, and abstracts of deeds sent to Annapolis beginning in 1784 also make up for some of the records that were destroyed

What was to become St. Mary's County was land where the Conoy Indians lived. Here, the English settlement of Lord Baltimore's Maryland began with the arrival of the passengers who had set sail on the Ark and the Dove from the Isle of Wight on November 22, 1633. They landed at St. Clement's Island in the Potomac River on the southwestern side of present-day St. Mary's County on March 25, 1634. Now, the date of their landing is commemorated annually as Maryland Day. St. Mary's County occupies the southeastern extremity of the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, forming a peninsula bounded on the southwest by the Potomac River, on the east and northeast by the bay and the Patuxent River, and on the northwest by Charles County. St. Mary's, the first Maryland county, was established in 1637, probably by an order of the provincial governor, Leonard Calvert. See also County History for more historical details.

Counties adjacent to St. Mary County are Calvert County (northeast), Charles County (northwest).

St. Mary County Towns Include Leonardtown. Communities Include Abell, Beachville-St. Inigoes, Bushwood, Callaway, Chaptico-Maddox, Clements, Coltons Point, Compton, Dameron, Drayden, Great Mills, Helen, Loveville, Morganza, Park Hall, Piney Point, Ridge, St. Mary's City, Scotland, Tall Timbers, Valley Lee. (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: California, Charlotte Hall, Golden Beach, Hollywood, Lexington Park, Mechanicsville

The St Mary County Official Government Website
St Mary County, Maryland History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.

There are free downloadable and printable forms to help with your research. These include U.S. Census Extraction Forms, U.K. Census Extraction Forms, Research Calendar, Ancestral Chart, Research Extract, Correspondence Record , Family Group Sheet , Source Summary Form.

Records at the St Mary County Courthouse

See Also Maryland Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

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. The Courthouse was destroyed in 1831 by fire. Some deeds were re-recordred back to 1781, and abstracts of deeds sent to Annapolis beginning in 1784 also make up for some of the records that were destroyed

Government records of St Mary County are available in Original , Microfilm and Digital formats from the Maryland State Archives The Official County website is located at http://www.co.saint-marys.md.us/. See also Courthouse History. NOTE: The record dates below are from the earliest date to present time.

St Mary County Register of Wills/ Clerk of Orphan's Court has Probate Records from 1658 and is located at 41605 Court House Drive , Leonardtown, MD 20650 - 0602; (888) 475-4821
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.

St Mary County Circuit Court Clerk has Land Records from 1827 and Marriage Records from earliest to 1919 and is located at 41605 Courthouse Drive , Leonardtown, Maryland 20650; (301) 475-4567
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.

There are a few online databases for Court, Land and Probate Records which include: Maryland Calendar of Wills, Maryland Marriages, 1655-1850 and Maryland Marriages, 1667-1899.

Click Here to Search Maryland Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records! - Researchers often overlook the importance of court records, probate records, and land records as a source of family history information.

Below is a list of online resources for St Mary County Court Records. Email us with websites containing St Mary County Court Records by clicking the link below:

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
St Mary County, Maryland Court Books at Amazon.com
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.

St Mary County Vital Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

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 St Mary County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing St Mary County Tax Records by clicking the link below:

St Mary County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Maryland Genealogical Addresses

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 St Mary County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing St Mary County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:

St. Mary's County Historical Society, P. O. Box 212, 41625 Court House Drive, Leonardtown, MD 20657 - 0212, (301) 475-2467
Saint Mary’s County Genealogical Society, Inc. , P.O. Box 1109 , Leonardtown, MD 20650-1109
Local Maryland Researchers, Find a local researcher or become a local researcher.
Maryland State Archives, 350 Rowe Boulevard, Annapolis, MD 21401
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.
Maryland Genealogical Society Books at Amazon.com

St Mary County Church & Cemeteries

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.

There are many churches and cemeteries in St Mary County. Some transcriptions are online. A great site is the St Mary County Tombstone Transcription Project.

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 St Mary County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing St Mary County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

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 St Mary County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing St Mary County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

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County History

The history of Maryland actually began in England over 350 years ago. England in the 1600s could be a terrible place to live. Many people lived in large cities like London, which could be very dangerous. Cities were overcrowded and many people could not find jobs. These cities were often very dirty and disease spread very quickly. Poor people had very little chance of making a better life for themselves. Wealthier people owned land in the country. For the most part, if your family did not own land when you were born, you would probably never own land, either. Even some people who did not live in the cities had a difficult life in England in the 17th century. According to the law, all people in England had to be members of the King’s church, called the Church of England. The laws said that people who did not belong to this church could be fined, could not vote, and could not hold any position in the government. Because of the poor conditions and unfair laws, many people were looking for a better way of life. Some eventually decided to look for it across the Atlantic Ocean in the New World. Who was George Calvert? George Calvert was born in 1580 to a wealthy family in Yorkshire, England. He attended Oxford University and became an important member of the English government. Calvert was a Secretary of State for King James I, which meant that he helped the King to make some of his most important decisions. He was very good at his job. In appreciation, the King gave him a large amount of land in Ireland and named him the Baron of Baltimore, or Lord Baltimore. Then, in 1625, Calvert announced that he was becoming a Catholic. By deciding to attend the Catholic Church, he could no longer be a member of the government. Instead, like many others, he decided to try to make a better life for himself in the New World. George Calvert had been interested in starting a colony in the New World for some time. He had invested money in the colonies of Virginia and Massachusetts. Calvert had also asked the King for permission to start a colony in Newfoundland, which is now in Canada. He purchased land there and in 1621, sent a group of settlers to the colony he called Avalon. Several years later, he and his family moved there. Calvert found that it was very cold in Avalon and decided that it was not a good place for his new colony. Instead, he sailed back to England to ask the King for land further south. On the way, he stopped in the colony of Virginia. He decided thatthe area around the Chesapeake Bay would be the best place for his new colony. On March 27, 1625, King Charles I became the new king of England after his father, King James, died. In 1632, Lord Baltimore presented the new king with a charter. This document said that Lord Baltimore would become the owner of a large piece of land next to the colony of Virginia. He would be called the proprietor of this new colony, which meant that he would own all of the land. The charter also said that he would be allowed to make the laws in his new colony as long as the colonists agreed. The charter gave him permission to give land to anyone he chose and to raise an army to defend his colony. Many people in England did not want to see Calvert get the land he was asking for because he was a Catholic. They tried to convince the King not to grant Calvert his request, but after time, the King did grant the charter for the colony. Unfortunately, by the time the King made his decision, George Calvert had died. Instead, the charter was granted to his son. In 1632, George Calvert’s oldest son, Cecilius, became the second Lord Baltimore and the first proprietor of Maryland. How do you prepare for a new colony? Cecilius began to make plans to settle his new colony. He decided to call the land Terra Maria, or Maryland, after the King’s Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria. He knew he needed to find investors, or people to help him pay for the expense of starting the new colony. He found seventeen men who were interested in helping him start Maryland. Most of these men were Catholic, like Cecilius. Many of them went on the first voyage to Maryland and hoped to find riches there. Cecilius also found members of a group of Catholic priests, called the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, who were interested in going to Maryland. These priests hoped to convince more people, including the Indians in Maryland, to join the Catholic Church. Cecilius also needed someone to be the leader of the new colony. He had realized that he would not be able to leave England and go to Maryland, himself. The people who did not want Lord Baltimore to receive his charter were still causing problems for him in England. Instead, Cecilius sent his younger brother, Leonard, to be the leader of the first journey and the first governor of Maryland. What was the voyage to Maryland like? In November 1633, about one hundred and forty passengers boarded a ship called the Ark at Cowes, England, and set sail for the New World. Of the colonists, seventeen were the gentlemen investors, four were with the Jesuits, and almost all of the rest were servants. These servants worked for the others. Almost all of the servants were Protestants and members of the King’s Church of England. There were very few women on the voyage and no families. There was at least one young boy. A ten- year old boy named William Browne was a servant on the voyage. Leonard Calvert and the other Catholic gentlemen had to be very careful on the voyage. They had to make sure that there were no problems about religion between themselves and their Protestant servants. To avoid any arguments, Lord Baltimore instructed the gentlemen to worship quietly and let the servants worship in any way that they wanted. This idea is called religious toleration. We will learn more about this in a later chapter. The Ark was accompanied by a smaller ship called the Dove that was owned by the Calvert family and several of the investors. The smaller ship carried all of the supplies that the settlers would need when they got to their new home. Lord Baltimore wrote a list of supplies that he thought people would need to bring to the new colony. Once the settlers got to Maryland, the Dove would be used to explore the rivers in the area. Not long after the ships left England, they sailed into a bad storm. The Ark became separated from the Dove. People on the Ark were afraid that the Dove had sunk with all of their supplies. The Ark had to go on with its journey and hope for the best. The journey took the ship down the coast of Africa then across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Islands. Once the Ark landed on the island of Barbados, the passengers had a great surprise. The Dove had survived the storm and come across the ocean with the supplies that they would need to start their new colony. Although they were happy to find the Dove again, the passengers on the Ark had a very difficult journey from England to the New World. Along with the storms, there were long periods at sea with no wind to move the ship along. The passengers were always nervous about pirates that might try to take the ship. They also had to live in very cramped spaces and eat bad food. The settlers and sailors on board the Ark had to heat pots over wood fires to cook their food. If the ship was in rough weather, they could not cook because the fire from the hearth might get out of hand and burn the entire wooden ship. The passengers might go days without any hot food. The passengers also had to make sure that the food that they brought on board would last for the entire journey. Most food was dried or salted to ensure that it did not spoil. The bread was baked for a long time until it was very, very hard. This kept the bread from getting moldy and also kept insects and mice from eating it. The bread would have to be soaked in soup or beer before it could be eaten. Passengers and sailors were always anxious for any opportunity to get fresh food.

After getting fresh supplies in the Caribbean Islands, the Ark and the Dove headed up the coast to Maryland. On March 25, 1634, they landed at an island that they named St. Clement’s Island. Father Andrew White, the leader of the Jesuits, held a mass to thank God for their safe passage. The next thing to be done was to find a suitable place to settle. The Dove would be used to sail the small creeks and rivers around Maryland and explore the land. Leonard Calvert wanted to be very careful when dealing with the Indians in the land he was to settle. He had heard of all of the troubles that the colonists in Virginia had had with the natives there. Calvert went up the Potomac River to speak with the leader, or tayac, of the Piscataway tribe. This man’s name was Wannas. Calvert asked Henry Fleet, a fur trader who spoke the Indian’s language, to help him. Calvert took items like metal tools and cloth to trade with the natives. Wannas told Calvert about a small village that the Yaocomaco Indians were leaving. This village would become St. Mary’s City.

In the village that Wannas spoke of lived a tribe of Indians called the Yaocomaco. The Yaocomaco were a peaceful tribe of farmers and hunters. They were living on both sides of a river that the English named the St. George’s River (now known as the St. Mary’s River). The natives on one side of the river were moving to be closer to the rest of their tribe. It is possible that they were being attacked by another tribe of Indians called the Susquehannocks. These natives were a war-like tribe that attacked other people in the area. Whatever the Yaocomaco’s reason for leaving, it was lucky for the English colonists. They were allowed to move into some of the Indian houses and live there until they could build their own homes. Some Yaocomaco stayed in the village, but they agreed that they would move within the first year. The colonists built a fort for protection. The Yaocomaco seemed to be very friendly, but they did not know whom else they might find in this new area. They were afraid of the Spanish, as well as other Indian tribes. The colonists soon learned that they were safe in their new home and moved out of the fort. What did the colonists need to learn about planting in Maryland? The colonists were also very lucky because they could use fields that the natives had been planting. This made it possible to grow food crops in time for their first winter in the New World. The natives taught the English how to farm and what sort of plants to grow in the new colony. The English learned about corn, which would become their most important food crop. The colonists had never seen a crop that could grow so much food from so few plants. They were used to growing plants like wheat and barley, but they learned that these were not good crops to grow in Maryland. To grow this new type of food, the colonists had to learn a new way to plant their crops. In England, farmers used plows pulled by oxen or horses to get fields ready for planting. The colonists quickly learned, though, that plows would not work well in Maryland. There were too many large trees with huge roots under the ground. The plow blades would break when they hit the roots. It would have taken a very long time to cut down the trees and pull out the roots. Instead, the natives taught the colonists to plant around the trees. They taught the colonists to girdle the trees by cutting a strip of bark off around the trunk of the tree. The tree’s leaves would fall off and the tree would die. As soon as the leaves were gone, the sun could reach anything planted around the tree. The natives taught the colonists to pile up dirt into small hills and plant seeds in those hills. That way, the corn’s roots were above any large roots left by the trees. This also made it much easier to weed around the plants. The colonists learned to grow their corn in this way, but also learned about another very important plant – tobacco. When Lord Baltimore sent the first colonists to Maryland, he thought that they might make their livings trapping animals for their furs. He hoped that his colonists would send beaver furs back to England. Beaver was very popular because the fur was perfect for making warm, waterproof hats. The colonists could not make enough money in this fur trade. Instead, the Maryland colonists started growing tobacco.

The first person to bring tobacco back to Europe was Christopher Columbus. He discovered the Indians in South America growing and smoking a plant that he had never seen before. He took this plant back to Europe and it became very popular. Many things from the New World like coffee and chocolate were popular, but none more so than tobacco. In fact, people in the 17th century used tobacco as a medicine. They believed that it was good for treating coughs and colds and toothaches. It would be a long time before people learned how dangerous tobacco smoke could be. The colonists had many difficult problems to deal with in the New World. They had moved to a brand new environment. There were many diseases in the New World that they had never had before. Many colonists got sick with what they called the seasoning. The seasoning was a combination of many diseases including malaria. Malaria was especially difficult because it made people very weak and tired. Many settlers, perhaps one out of every three people in the first year, died in the colony from the seasoning. Life would prove to be very difficult for the settlers to Maryland.

The first Marylanders had many struggles to face in their new home. Many of the colonists got sick from diseases that they were not used to. Those who were healthy worked long hours in the tobacco fields. It was a very hard life.

Even the government in the Maryland colony had challenges to face. In 1645, a man named Richard Ingle attacked St. Mary’s City. Ingle was a privateer, or someone who is hired to attack people and steal from them. They are sometimes called pirates. Ingle was working for people in England who wanted to hurt Lord Baltimore’s colony.

Ingle’s attack was successful. There were so few people living in St. Mary’s City that Ingle and his men were able to rob the colonists and burn some of their homes. Governor Leonard Calvert was forced to leave his colony and hide in Virginia. Ingle scared many people away from Maryland. Others, like Father Andrew White, were taken back to England as prisoners. Less than 100 people were left living in Maryland after Richard Ingle’s attack. That is less than came on the Ark when the colony was founded in 1634.

Eventually, Leonard Calvert came back from Virginia with mercenaries, or soldiers, to help him fight against Richard Ingle and his men. There was not much fighting to do because Ingle and most of his men had already left the colony. Instead, Calvert had to work to rebuild the colony and bring more settlers to Maryland. He began this work, but shortly after returning to Maryland, Leonard Calvert died. It would take strong people like Margaret Brent to pull Maryland through this difficult time.

St. Mary’s City was the first official city in Maryland. It also became the capital of the colony. It was very different from cities today. In the 17th century, few people lived in St. Mary’s City year round. At most, perhaps 200 people had their homes there. Most people lived on tobacco plantations and only came into town when they had to.

The most important thing that brought people to the city was the government. The Assembly met in the city to make laws for the colony. There were two houses of the Assembly, just like our Congress today. The Upper House of the Assembly was appointed by Lord Baltimore. The Lower House was elected by the people of the colony. At first, the Assembly met in private homes; especially the governor’s house and a house called St. John’s. Eventually, the colonists realized that they needed a place just for government business. In 1676, the government built a State House for their meetings. The State House was also used for trials and other court cases.

When people left their plantations to come into town, they often had to travel a great distance. They would spend several days or weeks in the city to take care of all of their business. While they were in St. Mary’s
City, they would need a place to stay. Many people who lived in St. Mary’s City made their living running a business called an ordinary. An ordinary was a place where an ordinary traveler could get an ordinary meal and an ordinary place to stay at an ordinary price. The prices in ordinaries were set by the Assembly so that everyone could afford to stay there. Travelers could get one meal each day and a place on a straw mattress, or ticking, at night. They might have to share the mattress with as many as three other people. Sometimes ordinaries would have dozens of people staying all at the same time. It was a very good business to own when travelers came into town.

Other businesses also did well in the capital. Some men owned small storehouses where colonists could buy some supplies. These storehouses, called mercantiles, are not like modern stores where you can find anything you need all year round. Most farmers in Maryland would get their supplies from England. Ships only brought supplies from England to Maryland once a year. If a planter ran out of supplies and could not wait for the ships to arrive from England, he might be able to get some of what he needed from a storehouse in town. The owner of the storehouse would buy whatever extra supplies he could find, hoping that he would be able to sell them in the coming year. Other than these businesses and a few lawyer’s offices, there were very few buildings in St. Mary’s City.

At the end of the 17th century, many things were changing for the residents of St. Mary’s County. For almost 40 years, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, had ruled Maryland from England. He protected his colony from attack, but had never set foot in Maryland. In 1675, Cecilius died. The control
of Maryland and the title, Lord Baltimore, passed to his oldest son, Charles Calvert. Since 1661, Charles had been the governor of Maryland. Now he became Lord Baltimore, as well. He angered colonists in Maryland by changing the number of representatives in the Lower House of the Assembly from four to
two from each county. Protestant Marylanders thought that Lord Baltimore was trying to take power away from them.

Then, in 1688, a new king and queen took the throne in England. The new leaders, King William and Queen Mary, were Protestants. Protestants in Maryland were afraid that Lord Baltimore would not support the new king and queen. They used this as a chance to attack Lord Baltimore’s government in Maryland.

In 1689, a sheriff in Charles County named John Coode raised an army and marched on the State House in St. Mary’s City. Only the members of the Upper House of the Assembly were in the building at the time. William Digges, the leader of the Upper House, realized that they were no match for the 100 men outside. They laid down their guns without ever firing a shot. With that, Lord Baltimore was no longer allowed to rule Maryland.

The rebels for