"Kent County justly claims the honor of being the most ancient settlement, and of inheriting the oldest organized government, in the State of Maryland... The Kent settlement, i.e. Kent county, originally embraced and included the whole of the Eastern Shore, and was under the government of an officer styled the 'Commander of the Isle of Kent.'" "The early records of Kent County, Maryland, which contain the only memorials extant of many of the first settlers of the Eastern Shore, are time-worn, mouldering, falling to pieces, and in a few years will become illegible, decay, and be lost. Upon their faded and perishing pages are chronicled some of the acts and doings of good men who have gone before us-whose graves are unknown-whose tombstones have disappeared-and whose names are forgotten, or are no longer mentioned among men." To preserve this precious history, the author has "endeavoured-with the light afforded by ancient Tombstones, Wills, Parish Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths, and the assistance of friends and their family annals-to connect, genealogically, the first settlers with their children-the present generation-and to weave, as it were, a living garland around the crumbling monuments of the dead." A wealth of names and dates pepper the pages of this book. Extracts from legal documents and an index to full-names, places and subjects index add to the value of this work.