NOTES AND QUERIES.

WILL OF OSWALD TILGHMAN.-OSWALD TILGHMAN of London, Grocer. Will 5 January 1628; proved 22 January 1628. My body to be buried in the Churchyard of St. Mary Abchurch, London, where I now dwell. The chest of linen in my upper chamber next the street, the valance for a bed, a wrought cupboard cloth and cupboard cloth of Holland marked A. T., all the plate marked A. T. given to my daughter Abigail, by her grandmother and mother, and a wine cup which her grandfather gave her, to be delivered immediately after my decease to Mr. Arthur Mowse for my said daughter's use, because they are her own and none of mine. My goods and chattels to be divided into three equal parts, according to the custom of the city of London. One third part thereof to my wife Elizabeth, according to the said custom; one other third part equally between my said daughter Abigail and my son Richard; and the remaining third, which is at my own disposing by the said custom, I give as follows. To the said Abigail, all my estate, right, title, interest, and term of years of, in, and to my messuage or tenement in Wood Street, London, which I let to Mr. Suger. Also to the said Abigail, my new bed and bolster, and a pair of flaxen sheets. To John Stocker, £3 when he shall be a freeman of London. To the poor of the parish of St. Mary Abchurch aforesaid, 10 shillings, and to the poor of Snodland, Kent, where I was born, other 10 shillings. I forgive my brother Whetnall Tilghman all the money he owes me, and I likewise forgive unto William Burnham 29 shillings and 6 pence which he owes me. The said Abigail residuary legatee, and my wife Elizabeth executrix of this my will. I entreat my loving friends Mr. Arthur Mowse, Edward his son, John Coleman, and William Wolsey to be overseers of this my will, and I give to each of them 10 shillings in token of my love. I charge my executrix to acquaint them, or some two of them, with all her proceedings about the appraisment of my goods and chattels and the execution of this my will, and I entreat the said Mr. Arthur Mowse to take into his custody the portion and legacy bequeathed to my daughter.

Witnesses: Hen: Colbron, Godfrey Blomer.

Reg: 7. Fo. 38, Arch: London.

[The testator was the father of Dr. Richard Tilghman who came to Maryland in 1661, and the will discloses the fact that Oswald Tilghman had also a daughter Abigail. See Magazine, i, 184].

BARNABY SCHOOL.-Among the "Benefactors to the Library of Appleby Grammar School" published in "Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society," vol. 13, p. 20, is the following:

"1790. Joseph Jackson, on leaving school to prepare for going to America to teach Barnaby School in Maryland, 10/6."

WALTER.-The will (1760) of John Walter of St. Mary's Co., Md., mentions testator's children William (to whom is bequeathed "my plantation in Chaptico Forest"), Rebecca, Lawrence, Richard, and James. William Walter, son of John and Ann, was born in 1741 and married, in 1763, Ann, daughter of Thomas and Judette Shanks. William Walter's will was proved 1802 and Lawrence Walter was a witness. Can any correspondent furnish information in regard to the ancestry and family connections of the above John and William Walter and of their wives?

W. Mosby Williams, Columbia Building, Washington, D. C.

CORRESPONDENCE.

BALTIMORE, January 19, 1907.

Editor of the Maryland Historical Magazine :

SIR :

In reply to your inquiries as to the long hiatus in the Eden Correspondence, of which mention is made in my letter of December 18, 1906 to our President (given below), I beg to say that I had hoped for some light from the mislaid Dartmouth paper referred to in the same letter; but I have recently discovered a copy of that paper among the Chalmers MSS. of the Lenox Library, and find it to contain nothing but extracts from letters which the Eden Correspondence gives in their entirety.

Perhaps we can get some light from another quarter. When the letters of the Colonial Governors, relating to the disturbances in North America, were laid before Parliament on or about January 20, 1775, they were found to include none from Maryland. In the Lords, the Earl of Chatham censured the delay of communicating these papers and the continuance of the Ministry to delude

the Country with misrepresentations of the state of the Colonies as an affair of Boston only. In the Commons, Mr. Burke observed the absence of letters from Maryland, intimated that they were kept back for political reasons, and asked if these papers contained all the intelligence the Ministry had received from America. Lord North, in his reply, while professing ignorance as to the Maryland letters, added that he would not pretend to say the papers contained all the intelligence from America.

Now, the news of the Maryland disturbances of October 1774 had been published in the English journals as early as December 15 of that year, and had prepared the Country to suspect that the state of the Colonies was not "an affair of Boston only," which suspicion the Ministry were, naturally, unwilling to confirm. By coupling Lord North's remarks with those of the Earl of Chatham and Mr. Burke, may we not infer that the Ministry kept back the Maryland letters? There is positive proof in our Society's "Peggy Stewart" papers that Governor Eden sent home a full account of that affair shortly after November 8, 1774, and the troubled political condition of the times must have dictated sundry other communications from the local to the home authorities; yet, with the exception of a fragment (a copy-not an original) of a letter written by the Governor on December 30, 1774 to his brother William, the Eden Correspondence contains no advices of any kind from Annapolis to London between the summer of 1773 and the spring of 1775, a term of about twenty-one months.

I believe that the missing Maryland letters were important enough to suppress, but too important to destroy, and that they still exist in some unexplored recess of the British archives. With this view, I feel that a continuance of the search is not altogether hopeless.

Very sincerely yours,

RICHD. D. FISHER.

BALTIMORE, December 18, 1906.

MENDES COHEN, Esq., President Maryland Historical Society: DEAR SIR

The volume which I have pleasure to present, herewith, to our Society contains transcripts of all the correspondence of the Eden Administration of the Province of Maryland now existing in the

British Public Record Office and the British Dartmouth MSS. with the exception of one mislaid paper of the latter collection, which is not deemed of material importance. I have procured these transcripts through the intermediation of Messrs. B. F. Stevens & Brown of London, the well-known authorities on Americana, whose letters appear en suite.

There are several breaks in this correspondence, notably one running from August 1773 to May 1775, of which further mention is made in the newspaper clippings hereto appended. Messrs. Stevens & Brown have diligently, but ineffectually, searched through various public British repertories for the missing papers of that period and of any other blank period between 1769 and 1777. My own efforts to elicit something of the kind from the Eden family through Rev. Robert A. Eden of London (who is a great-grandson of the Governor), and from the descendants of Lord George Germain (who succeeded Lord Dartmouth as Secretary of State for the Colonies) have failed of results, as will appear from letters inserted in this volume. I have further inserted the reports of the Bureau of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., showing that its inquiries across the water in my behalf have likewise proved unsuccessful. Thus, my pursuit seems to have come to a halt for the present, yet I still hope for some discoveries when the papers of the Lords of the Treasury shall have been calendared down to and through our Revolutionary War.

While it has been no part of my plan to include this side of the ocean in my searches, it has come to my knowledge that there are many Maryland papers, both within and without the Eden term, in the two Maryland volumes (1619-1812) and the one Nova Scotia volume (1745-1817) of the Chalmers MSS. now owned by the Lenox Library of New York, and that there are a few Maryland papers without that term, in the Maryland and Virginia volume (1727-1761) of the Chalmers MSS. now owned by Harvard University Library. I have reason to believe that these four Chalmers volumes contain unpublished Maryland matter of considerable historical value, and I avail myself of this occasion to suggest that a Commission be appointed for their careful examination, with the view of procuring for our files transcripts of such of their contents as we do not, yet ought to, possess.

Very respectfully,

RICHD. D. FISHER.

PROCEEDINGS OF MONTHLY MEETINGS.

Monthly Meeting, held December 10th, 1906.—At the regular meeting held on the above date, the President announced the selection by the Council of Mr. George Norbury Mackenzie as Recording Secretary, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Joseph C. Mullin. This action of the Council was approved by the Society and Mr. Mackenzie was elected Recording Secretary to serve until the next annual meeting.

Mr. Oswald Tilghman and Mr. W. Mosby Williams were elected members of the Society; and announcement was made of the death during the month of an unusually large number of members. The list comprised the names of Mr. Jesse Tyson, Mr. Charles David Fisher, Mr. Francis Tazewell Redwood, Dr. Isaac E. Atkinson and of John Francis, 12th Lord Arundell of Wardour.

The additions to the collections and library during the month presented no items of unusual interest.

Dr. James Mercer Garnett presented the paper of the evening. The subject chosen was "John Francis Mercer, Governor of Maryland, 1801-03," and the writer presented his theme in an exceedingly interesting manner.

Monthly Meeting, held January 14th, 1907.-The first meeting of the New Year was marked by a larger attendance of members than usual. Among the donations reported to the Society was one of exceptional interest, being a copy of the correspondence of Governor Eden, 1760-1777. The donor, Mr. Richard D. Fisher accompanied his gift with a letter which contained certain recommendations of action to be taken by the Society, and a Committee was authorized to be appointed to take action upon the suggestions.

Among the correspondence read was a letter from the Superintendent of Education, Mr. M. Bates Stephens, asking that the Society make a suggestion or recommendation of a suitable topic for the Maryland Day Celebration, and Vice-President Thompson and Dr. Bernard C. Steiner were selected as a Committee to confer and coöperate with Mr. Stephens.