When We Were Greers, Part VI

by Glenn N. Holliman

What do we know of our Day ancestors?

(Continuing the series of ancestral families of G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne)

Sarah Day, my generation's 7th Great Grand Mother (7th GGM), was born 1686 in Baltimore, Maryland and died March 1758 in same county. She married John Greer, Sr. (7th GGF) March 4, 1704 in Joppa, Maryland at St. John's Episcopal parish. Her father was Nicholas Day (8th GGF), 1635 abt in Wales, England - 1704 in Baltimore, and mother Sarah Lowe (8th GGM). The couple married in 1684 in Baltimore Co., Maryland. Sarah was the daughter of William Lowe. This trail through the woods at Joppa, Maryland leads down to the Gunpowder River. Imagine if you can, wharfs, dray men, live stock and thousands of hogsheads of tobacco being loaded in ocean going cargo ships. Now a grown up river side with only a few monuments to mark the ghost town. Photos October 2010 by the author.

Nicholas Day's father was named also Nicholas Day (9th GGF) and mother was Sarah Cox (9th GGM). The birthplaces of these 9th GGParents are unknown but they married in Maryland.

These ancestors were farmers raising tobacco, and most likely corn and livestock. Their lives centered about the Gunpowder River and the town of Joppa.

In this photo below one observes the silted Gunpowder River. On this site in the first half of the 1700s were wharfs, perhaps as many as a hundred lining the river. This particular location is located precisely in the center of the western edge of Old Joppa. It is difficult to envision what was once here - one of the premier ports of the Western Hemisphere in its day. This is an Eastern ghost town!