Maryland Rent Rolls

Description

The Rent Rolls were the private sets of manuscript books that the Proprietors of Maryland assembled at various times during the Colonial Period to keep account of land grants and landowners from whom quit rent was due. These quit rents, an early form of property tax, were paid to the Proprietors throughout the Colonial Period–even when the Calverts were without political control in Maryland. The Baltimore County portion describes the grants in the “hundreds” of Spesutia, Gunpowder, and Patapsco, from the earliest county grants to those of 1700, with later corrections to 1724. The documents for Anne Arundel County are the Rent Roll of 1707 and the Rent Roll of 1705-1724, and they refer to the following five hundreds: Herring Creek, West River, South River, Middle Neck, and a combined Broad and Town Neck Hundred. As a rule the Rent Roll entries recorded here identify the owner and furnish a precise description of his grant, including date, location, and acreage, and further name a host of persons associated with the grant–former owners, widows of former owners, children, heirs, neighbors, and relatives.