There were very few changes, either by death or resignation, during the first twentyfive years which followed the organization of the Court of Appeals. Solomon Wright and James Murray retired from the court in 179 1 and 1786 respectively, and Richard Potts' and Littleton Dennis were appointed to the Supreme Bench of the State. In 1805, the General Assembly of Maryland re organized the Court of Appeals, and the appointment of the judges was placed in the hands of the governor of the State. Under this law, Gov. Robert Wright made the following appointments of judges : Jeremiah Townley Chase, Chief Judge, Gabriel Duvall, Robert Smith, James Tilghman, John Thomson Mason and William Bullock. Jeremiah Townley Chase was one of the most distinguished men of Maryland for fifty years from 1775. Born in Balti more in 1748, when it was a village of two hundred inhabitants, he lived to see his native place become the metropolis of the South, with a population of seventy-five thousand. His father, Richard Chase, emi grated from England between 1732 and 1740, and settled in what was the then village of Baltimore, in the Province of Maryland. He was a lawyer, and practiced his profession, in Calvert, Anne Arundel, Frederick and Baltimore Counties. On the 24th of February, 1742, he married Cather ine Strudwick of Calvert County. They had two children, a daughter and a son. The latter, the subject of this sketch, was a member of the Baltimore Bar until 1779, when he removed to Annapolis, Md. In 1774 he was one of the "Committee" for Baltimore town and County, and a member of the Maryland Convention which met at Annapolis on the 22d of June the same year. This body, which was composed of the most distinguished men of Maryland, was animated by the most determined op position to the obnoxious measures of the
British government. They proposed the cessation of all intercourse with the mother country; directed subscriptions to be raised for the relief of the Bostonians and, having elected delegates to the Continental Con gress, declared that the Province of Mary land would break off all trade, commerce, intercourse or dealing of every kind with any colony, province or town that refused to join the common league. On the 18th of July, 1781, Jeremiah Townley Chase was one of the committee of citizens of Annapolis, of which city he was, in 1783, elected Mayor; the same year he was one of the Maryland representa tives in Congress. In 1789, he was ap pointed one of the judges of the General Court of the State, and, on the 8th of February, 1799, became Chief Judge of that court. When the Court of Appeals was reorganized in 1805, as already men tioned, Judge Chase was appointed its Chief Judge, which office he held until his resignation in 1824. He continued to live in Annapolis until his death on May 11, 1828. John Johnson, father of Reverdy John son, the senator, and John Johnson, the last Chancellor of Maryland, was born in Annapolis, September 12, 1770, and died suddenly in Hancock, Maryland, July 30, 1824. He was then engaged in adjusting the boundary between Maryland and Vir ginia. At the time of his death he was Chancellor of Maryland, having been ap pointed on October 15, 1821. Prior there to he was Chief Judge of the county court for the first judicial district, embracing St. Mary's, Charles and St. George's Coun ties, and member of the Court of Appeals, to which office he was appointed March 15, 18 11 . From 1806 to 18 11 he was Attorney-General. His father was Robert Johnson, who by tradition is said to have been a Revolutionary officer. His mother was Anna Whitcroft, a widow at the time
