Thomas Gerard

Family/Spouse: Grace. Grace died before 1586. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1641

John married Isabel on 16 Feb 1608. Isabel died in Dec 1655. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1 Feb 1672 and 19 Oct 1673

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]

Thomas married Susanna Snow after 21 Sep 1629. Susanna (daughter of John Snow and Eydreth) died before 1673. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: John Coode. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Susannah married Robert Slye about 1653. Robert (son of George Slye) was born before 8 Jul 1627; was christened on 8 Jul 1627 in Lapworth, Warwickshire, England; died between 18 Jan 1671 and 13 Mar 1671 in Bushwood, St. Clement's Manor, St. Mary's County, Maryland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

At her marriage to Col. John Washington she was the widow of (successively) Col. Thomas Speake, Col. Valentine Peyton, and Capt. John Appleton. Following Washington's death she married William Hardwick.

Frances married Col. John Washington after 10 May 1676. John (son of Rev. Lawrence Washington and Amphyllis Twigden) was born about 1634; died before 11 Jan 1677 in Washington Parish, Westmoreland County, Virginia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1669
• Alternate death: Aft 1722
• Alternate death: 1733

Family/Spouse: Luke Gardiner. Luke (son of Luke Gardiner and Elizabeth Hatton) died in 1705. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Elizabeth married Edward Cole after 1694. Edward (son of Robert Cole and Rebecca) was born on 9 Nov 1657 in St. Clement's Hundred, St. Mary's County, Maryland; died between 18 Apr 1717 and 20 Dec 1717 in St. Mary's County, Maryland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]