The Government at St. Leonard’s

In 1657 Richard Smith, Sr., was appointed to fill the newly created office of Attorney General for Maryland. The following year, his plantation, St. Leonard’s, was used by the colonial General Assembly and Lord Baltimore’s Council of Maryland for a series of meetings. Laws passed there that year included a peace treaty between Lord Baltimore and rebellious settlers, a bounty for killing wolves, a bill requiring the registration of births, marriages, and deaths, penalties for servant women who had illegitimate children, legal protection for estates inherited by minor children, and penalties for public drunkenness. A map of the plantation drawn in the 1770s indicated that the Smith family cemetery was located there, and archaeological test trenches uncovered the tops of graves exactly where the map showed, leading utility lines to be moved so the burials would remain undisturbed.

Maryland · United States