Dr. Thomas Gerard

Bef 1608 - 1673  (> 64 years)

• Name	Thomas Gerard  [1]
  Prefix	Dr.
  Birth	Bef 10 Dec 1608  [2, 3]
  Baptism	10 Dec 1608	Winwick, Lancashire, England   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Alternate death	Between 1 Feb 1672 and 19 Oct 1673  [4]
  Death	Between 28 Jan 1673 and 19 Nov 1673	Westmoreland County, Virginia   [2, 5]
  Burial	St. Clement's, St. Mary's County, Maryland   [2]
  Person ID	I35720	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	25 Mar 2024

  
  

  Father	John Gerard,   b. 1584, of the New Hall in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, England d. Aft 1648 (Age > 65 years)
  Mother	Isabel   d. Dec 1655
  Marriage	16 Feb 1608  [2, 3]
  Family ID	F21020	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Susanna Snow   d. Bef 1673
  Marriage	Aft 21 Sep 1629  [2, 3]
  Children	+ 1. Susannah Gerard   d. Aft 1679   2. Frances Gerard
  Family ID	F20986	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	5 Sep 2021

  
  

• Notes

  "He immigrated to Maryland in 1638, brought his family in 1650, [and] was lord of St. Clement's, Basford, and Westwood Manors, St. Mary's County, Maryland. He was a controversial figure in provincial politics and frequently at odds with the proprietor's spokesman. He served as a member of Provincial Assembly and Upper House, the Provincial Council, and a Justice of the Provincial Court. He supported Fendall's Rebellion in 1659/60, for which he was permanently barred from voting or holding office in the colony. He removed to Westmoreland County, Virginia in 1664, where he settled at Gerard's Reserve in Lower Machadoc." [Royal Ancestry, citation details below] "Doctor Thomas Gerard, 'Esq.,' Lord of 'St. Clement's Manor,' St. Mary's County, Md. [...] ]was a Member of the Assembly of Maryland from St. Mary's Hundred, and also in 1641, of the Council. He seems to have been a fearless and determined man, and to have acted on his conviction irrespective of all parties. With the grant of a manor, there was frequently granted a right for the Lord of the Manor to hold a 'Court Leet and Court Baron.' There is a record of the holding of several of such Courts at 'St. Clement's Manor,' from 1659-72, which gives an interesting insight into the life and customs of that time. It was in the session of Assembly that met on February 28th, 1659-60, (which convened at Thomas Gerard's) that Governor Fendall, Thomas Gerard and Nathaniel Utie (Utye), the latter two were of the Council, and the majority of the house of Delegates, struck their blow for the overthrow of the Lord Proprietor's power and attempted to make the house of Delegates supreme. By this means a Commonwealth, similar to that which had existed in the Mother country, was to be established." [Ancestral Records and Portraits, citation details below] From John Walton, "Genealogica Marylandia: Gerard's Daughters" (citation details below): Dr. Thomas Gerard, member of an ancient and great Lancashire County Catholic family, was born in 11609, probably in Newhall. In 1629 he married Susanna Snow, daughter of John and Judith (some say Edryth) Snow of Staffordshire, and a sister of Abel, Justinian, and Marmaduke Snow who were associated with Lord Baltimore in the Maryland enterprise. Abel Snow held the manor of Snow Hill. Apparently, Dr. Thomas Gerard was a distant cousin of the Richard Gerard who came to Maryland in 1633 and returned to England in 1635. Richard was probably a descendant of Sir Thomas Gerard, the great Elizabethan. As far as is known Dr. Thomas Gerard came to Maryland, first, in 1638; after a return trip or two, brought his family over in 1650. On September 19 of that year he demanded 2000 acres of land for transporting himself, his wife, and five children into the province as well as Mr. Austin Hall (or Hull) and eight manservants and four woman servants. His children were Justinian, Susan, Frances, Temperance, and Elizabeth. Of all Baltimore's manorial Lords, Dr. Thomas Gerard probably governed his demesne in the most traditionally baronial style. At St. Clement's he held manorial courtto--the Court Leet and the Court Baron--he took advantage of prover bial prerogatives of his position for the enjoyment of the good things of this world, and he continued to acquire land. To the 3500 acres that lay across the Potomac in Westmoreland County he retreated after his unexplained participation in Josias Fendall's rebellion in 1660. There he married his second wife, a young widow by the name of Rose Tucker (by whom he had no children), and there he died in 1673. His body was brought back to St. Clements to lie by that of his first wife, Susanna. A footnote to the history of Virginia records that Dr. Thomas Gerard, together with Henry Corbin, John Lee, and Isaac Allerton*, erected a "Banquetting House"; many years later an unusually strait-laced Bishop of Virginia cited the events that occurred in this house as an example of "riotous living" in the seventeenth century. [* Son of the Mayflower passenger Isaac Allerton by his second wife, Fear Brewster. --PNH]

  
  

• Sources

  [S7427] Clifford L. Stott, "The Slye Family of Lapworth, Warwickshire: Ancestors of Capt. Robert Slye of St. Mary's County, Maryland, and Sarah (Slye) Cooper, Wife of Lt. Thomas Cooper of Springfield, Massachusetts." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 177:333, Fall 2023. [S142] Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson. Salt Lake City, 2013. [S145] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. 8th edition, William R. Beall & Kaleen E. Beall, eds. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004, 2006, 2008. [S5936] John Walton, "Genealogica Marylandia: Gerard's Daughters." Maryland Historical Magazine 68:443, 1973. [S5935] Ancestral Records and Portraits: A Compilation from the Archives of Chapter I., The Colonial Dames of America. 2 vols., New York, 1910., year only.