Arthur Ginn of Kent Island, Maryland, British America died 1676

 Arthur here is the first recorded Ginn in America.  So 2023 is a remarkable year in that he has been found.  The return of the prodigal perhaps.  More American discoveries will follow.

He seems clearly to be one of the numerous Arthurs in my Study (a possible connection to Devon having been ruled out) but I have no idea as to which one though have a suspicion. Twelve of the fifteen recorded Arthur Ginn references before 1837 come from this Hertfordshire family.

The third settlement in British America (after Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620) was on the Island of Kent (shortly after Kent County in Maryland) in Chesapeake Bay.  Kent Fort was built in 1631 and a small settlement of about 120 English souls was established in 1642.

The Crown granted the proprietorship (right to receive the income) of Kent to Lord Baltimore of the Calvert family.  If there were no settlers then there was no income, so Baltimore devised a way of luring colonists from England.  The government supported the move as they wanted England to settle America as quickly as possible as a buffer against any French plans to do so.

The scheme devised was the "head-rights" system, whereby any man (or woman apparently) who could pay for their own passage to America (cost about £20 - a substantial sum) would be  granted 100 acres of land in America shortly after arrival, more if he brought wife, children and servants - ie rights "by head".  The rights attached to the people who were brought our or "transported" so a man who had paid the passage of another could claim the  extra land.  And these rights were assignable, so effectively a settler could acquire a fair chunk of land if he could afford to buy the rights attaching to a person who was brought out there.

The scheme worked - people began arriving from England in greater numbers (early settlers seem to have been almost exclusively English) and by the 1660s or so it is estimated that there were some 600 English settler on Kent, more spreading along small settlements along the Bay on the mainland.

For Kent was an island of sorts, a small strip of land joins it to Maryland proper  as can be seen from the 1866 map above.  

We cannot be entirely certain of the date because the evidence is circumstantial (court records) but Arthur seems to have arrived in

Kent in 1666/7.  He was certainly there by 1668.  His voyage from England (likely from London) would have been very hard and taken two to three months.

What we know of Arthur is that he was certainly English, he was literate and he must have come from the Yeoman class or similar, as he paid his own passage out (cost about £20) and was prepared for a very tough life working on the land.

The Kent County court (there was no actual Court House until after Arthur's death) likely met in taverns and alehouses as it often did in England.  It dealt with business matters, debts etc and Arthur is mentioned both as a juror and as a party to legal proceedings.  I was surprised to discover that English coinage was in short supply in all of the American colonies, so tobacco was used as the barter currency of choice.

                         Land Patent to Arthur 1672 (Maryland State Archives)

Arthur made an application for the 100 land grant that, as a free settler, Baltimore had promised him - and so in 1670 he obtained a Warrant acknowledging his claim.  In 1671 the land was surveyed, and in 1672 he received the formal grant of the land.  The 100 acres were to be called Cony or Conny Hall (the alternative spellings were still used later) and the land was adjacent to the head of  Great Thickett Creek the name of which is no longer used and it took me some months to track this down.  The boundaries were marked on the corners by marked (apparently notches were cut in each tree in a pattern unique to each owner to mark them out) pock hickory trees.  The terms "pock hickory" was the English phonetic rendering of an Indian word, the trees now known as Hickory of course and still common on Kent.

Conny Hall would, of course have been a wilderness that Arthur was obliged to clear before he could farm or grow tobacco, the principal crop.  Kent was pockmarked by creeks and it was somewhat damp and marshy.  For this reason the various native tribes who inhabited it and Maryland generally (they were very friendly to the English) chose to use the waterways and fish, rather than make any attempt to live off of the land.

At some point Arthur married a lady called Alice.  There is  no evidence that he married in England so America is the more likely, particularly given that  at this time the head right was 100 acres per person who came over to the Eastern Shore.  But although a sort of Anglican church was established at Back Creek from 1652, there are scant records and no mention of Arthur.  So the marriage remains a mystery.

So Arthur and Alice would have been working hard to clear the land, build a rudimentary cabin (nothing fancy) and make a living. He seems to have employed the odd indentured servant or two to help him  There is evidence (a set of cooper's tools in his inventory) that he took up that trade as a side line.  From what I can see this was the most popular and numerous trade in early colonial America as barrels were needed for everything, from tobacco to beer and numerous other liquids.  There is also evidence he also went in for fishing, a major food source for the native tribes and, obviously, hunting.  There were a few essential farm animals and he was growing tobacco.

To my astonishment, I found out where Arthur's plantation was and I think I know where he lived.  A researcher of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Cindi Schmidt,  has mapped the plantations granted on Kent Island in the 1600s.  And the Upper Shore Genealogical Society have helped me a great deal.  Combine this with my own research and we have a story.

Cindi produced a map, superimposed on a 1862 map of the landmarks of the 1600s, and I have in turn superimposed on that shown by the hatching the rough location of Conny Hall.

It is apparent that at some point in the late 1600s Conny Hall or at least much of it reverted to Lord Baltimore, the Lord of the Manor.  This was not freehold or leasehold land, but copyhold of the manor (which concept is now extinct in English law) and my suspicion is that it reverted back for want of a surviving male heir of Arthur and Alice.

But, in any event, the land of Conny Hall was subsequently to a large degree incorporated in the Plantation (later farm) called Barnstable Hill, which survives.  By the mid 1700s both Conny Hall and Barnstable Hill were in the ownership of the Gardner family.  Both passed down through that family and in 1866 (see map above) Richard Gardner was the owner (he died in 1870) and you will see mention of R Gardner, he was living in Conny Hall and I know that the Gardner family had their own family cemetery there, containing grave markers and stones from the 1700s to 1900 or so apparently.  The cemetery was allegedly illegally bulldozed about 20 years ago because it obscured the view of an advertising hoarding from the road.  I think it likely that the Gardners occupied the site of the cottage that Arthur had originally built in 1670 or so !

Kent, like much of the Chesapeake Bay coastline was obviously damp, marshy with a lot of creeks and whilst very cold in winter, damp hot and humid in the summer.  There are 59 species of mosquitoes in Maryland and in Arthur's day the freshly arrived English settlers got malaria and died like flies if you forgive the pun.  Many did not even last long enough to receive their land grant.  It was only the constant replenishment of new arrivals and the second and third generations building some resistance to the disease that kept the colony going.

So it is perhaps no surprise that in July 1676 Arthur got ill, he had perhaps been on the island for ten years - it was almost certainly malaria.  He and Alice seem to have lived in rural simplicity.  If he is who I think he is, he was about 41.

Arthur left Letters of Administration to Alice and she produced an Inventory of his goods to the Court.  Alice would have taken an interest in Conny Hall for life, but if she died without a male heir then it would have reverted to the Manor, which it clearly did as widows apart, most manorial courts did not recognize women as heirs.

Arthur had led a simple life, he had his cooper's tools, his fishing equipment, a fur coat for the winter, a knot or ball of tobacco at his death (some weighed 100 lbs before being placed into barrels - which he likely made himself)) some farm animals and, perhaps the greatest comfort to him, "an old bible".  I am very glad to have found him.

                     Arthur's Inventory (Maryland State Archives)

Post script

Conny Hall and Barnstable Hill have been absorbed into Barnstable Hill Wildlife Reserve.  The land that Arthur broke his back trying to clear has gone back to nature.  I doubt he would mind.

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Jennifer Abbott of Maryland State Archives and particularly David Baker of the Upper Shore Genealogical Society of Maryland for their help and assistance