This unique historical and genealogical resource draws on the extraordinarily intact legislative, judicial, religious, and personal records of members of the first Maryland legislature. The two-volume set contains profiles of nearly fifteen hundred men who served in the state's legislature in the first 150 years after Maryland's founding.The major public and private aspects of each legislator's career are quickly discernible: family background, marriage, children, social status, religious affiliation, occupation, other offices held, and military service. Many entries include a brief summary of a legislator's stance on public and private issues. A final category, wealth at death, inventories the legislator's estate and notes any significant changes in wealth between first election and death.

The chief interest in this work rests with the naturalizations in Part III, which were compiled from Maryland's Provincial Court documents in the Hall of Records, Annapolis, Between 1742 and 1775 upwards of 1,000 naturalizations were granted in Maryland. Data in the naturalization records presented here includes the identifying number of the record, date of naturalization, date of communion, volume and page of the Provincial Court Judgments, name, county or town of residence, nationality, church membership, location of church, and witnesses to communion. Place names, clergy, and parish locations are identified in the appendix.

Containing political, historical, geographical, scientifical, statistical, economical, and biographical documents, essays and facts: together with notices of the arts and manu factures, and a record of the events of the times.