Rockville began around 1750 with Owen's Ordinary, an inn and tavern established in the area. It served as the seat of lower Frederick County and in 1776 became the seat of Montgomery County when that county was created. In 1784, William P. Williams subdivided 45 acres of his land into building lots and named the settlement Williamsburgh, and fifteen years later structures stood on 38 lots. Because the Williamsburgh plat had legal problems, the Maryland General Assembly directed in November 1801 that the lots be resurveyed and a town erected called Rockville, and the town plan was recorded in 1803. The plan laid out a grid of six streets, 19 blocks, and 85 lots, with the Court House lot set into a notch on the right border in Block VIII. A boundary stone incised with the letters "B.R." marked the Beginning of Rockville at the southeast corner of Block I, lot 1 on the lower right of the plan. After many years neglected and half-buried in the weeds of an undeveloped lot, the stone resurfaced when the Rockville Library was built in the 1950s and was placed near its original location in 1961 as a reminder of Rockville's modest beginnings.