We received the Maryland Archives’ official copy of the “Returns of the Deputy Commissary of Charles County,” 19 April 1706. We previously explained that Cornelius was described as a “pauper” in this record of the bond posted for the administration of his estate. Well it turns out that the “pauper” description is a clerical error. In the original, the word can be seen abbreviated in the margin next to Cornelius’ entry. In contrast, some adjacent entries for other deceased men are annotated with the word “inventory” in the margin. It looks like a reviewer of the record somehow overlooked Cornelius’ (extensive) inventory, which was conducted on 9 March 1706. A scan of the archival copy is below.
As a silver lining, this document proves that James Maddox was the first son of Cornelius Maddox – a question for some other researchers. It also provides further proof of Mary Smallwood’s marriage to Cornelius.
hisXmark 
Yeah! Got that one done.
Dad
Justin: this is great work on your part. very interesting document. So wealth, or at least prosperity, runs in the family.
On second thought, were the Maddoxes trying to avoid paying taxes on Cornelius estate and by declaring him a “paup,” the family avoided some kind of fee or tax? Was it normal to pay all that sterling to get the ability to administer the estate? Humm…This thought came up when I reconsidered the phrase, “clerical error”.
Quite possible! And another interpretation is that since he only netted 20 Pounds at death, he technically qualified as a pauper.