Prior to 1776, the House of Delegates and the Senate were known as the Lower House and Upper House of the General Assembly, respectively. The Special Collections Room (SCR) houses a large collection of House and Senate Journals from 1728-1849. The Library has acquired these journals in various ways.
While the Library has rebound most of the journals to help preserve the text blocks inside, the Maryland Lower House of Assembly Journal from 1739 is still in the binding in which it came to the State Law Library. The Journal was previously owned by the Maryland Historical Society and gifted to the State Law Library in or around 1905. The Journal was given to Historical Society by the Library Committee of the State Library of Pennsylvania.
Some journal volumes have a name written on the title page, such as Thomas Cockey Deye or Nicholas Worthington. This may indicate that they were previously part of someone’s personal library. The Lower House of Assembly Journal from 1739 was printed by Jonas Green, who ran a print shop out of his home on Charles Street in Annapolis until his death in 1767. After his death, his wife Anne Catharine Green fulfilled the contract their printing shop had with the Maryland government to publish the Proceedings of the Maryland General Assembly. Jonas Green’s name appears on the title page of the book.
