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Items with subject 'Judicial System'
Worcester County Court records
by Worcester County Court (1823 – 1991)
22 boxes, 1 folder (24 linear feet)
Worcester County Court records consist of records of the Register of Wills, the Orphans’ Court, the Circuit Court, and the Department of Public Works of Worcester County, Maryland from 1823-1991. The bulk of collection is related to the settlement of estates from 1825-1919. These estate vouchers, or debts owed by and to the deceased, include those not only of white farmers, merchants and attorneys, but also of Robert Henry, an African American ship captain, and of Wong Bong, a Chinese laborer. Among Henry’s estate vouchers is a receipt from 1905 for repairs to the schooner BEERSHEBA, while among Bong’s estate vouchers is an example of Chinese calligraphy from 1914. The collection includes papers of Thomas D. Purnell, a Register of Wills, from 1890-1897, and of William Kerbin, an attorney, from 1921-1930. It also includes circuit court records of the dissolution of a business partnership between Calvine Howerton and William Duncan from 1916-1931, and records of the Department of Public Works from 1948-1991. The collection offers insight not only into Worcester County’s legal proceedings, but also into the diversity of the county’s population and into two centuries of the county’s economic development and growth.