William E. Nelson 
Common Law in Colonial America [PDF ebook] 
Volume I: The Chesapeake and New England 1607-1660

Drawing on groundbreaking and overwhelmingly extensive research into local court records, The Common Law in Colonial America proposes a "new beginning" in the study of colonial legal history, as it charts the course of the common law in Early America, to reveal how the models of law that emerged differed drastically from that of the English common law. In this first volume, Nelson explores how the law of the Chesapeake colonies–Virginia and Maryland–differed from the New England colonies–Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth, and Rhode Island–and looks at the differences between the colonial legal systems within the two regions, from their initial settlement until approximately 1660.