Colonial Maryland was considerably larger than the present-day State of Maryland. The original charter granted the Calverts a province with a boundary line that started "from the promontory or headland, called Watkin's Point, situate upon the bay aforesaid near the river Wighco on the West, unto the main ocean on the east; and between that boundary on the south, unto that part of the bay of Delaware on the north, which lyeth under the 40th degree of north latitude from the aequinoctial, where New England is terminated."Dozer, Donald Marquand. Portrait of The Free State: A History of Maryland. Tidewater Publishers. 1976. .p. 116 The boundary line would then continue westward along the fortieth parallel "unto the true meridian of the first fountain of the river Pattowmack". From there, the boundary continued south to the southern bank of the Potomac River, continue along the southern river bank to the Chesapeake Bay, and "thence by the shortest line unto the aforesaid promontory, or place, called Watkin's Point."p. 38. Based on this deceptively imprecise description of the boundary, the land may have comprised up to , 50% larger than today’s State.Taylor, Alan. American Colonies (New York: Viking, 2001), p. 136; and, John Mack Faragher, ed., The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America (New York: Facts on File, 1990), p. 254.
