When We Were Greers, Part V

by Glenn N. Holliman

More on our Day and Taylor Ancestors along the Chesapeake Bay

By the early 1700s Joppa Town was a major seaport on the Atlantic Coast. German settlers in Pennsylvania and the Scot Irish, who were filling the interior of Pennsylvania and Maryland, 'rolled' hogsheads of tobacco to the dozens of wharfs at Joppa. Below is an engraving from the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia showing how Chesapeake planters moved their precious goods to port. The road from York, Pennsylvania to Joppa, Maryland was known as a 'rolling road'.


In 1724, a new town of Joppa was laid out on Taylor's Choice, in all probability part of our 9th great grandfather's Arthur Taylor's Choice (300 acres at least from the 1680s). In the photograph below ,is the historical marker with the 1960s Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in the background. In 1724, St. Johns Parish moved from Edgemore to Joppa on this site.



What do we know of our Taylor ancestors?

My generation's 8th great grandmother (8 GGM) was Anne Taylor b 1660 and married November 2, 1675 at the age of 15 to fifty year old James Greer (8th GGF) in Baltimore. Hmmm...a marriage for whose convenience? Our Anne died May 13, 1716 in Baltimore. One of their children would be John Greer, my 7th GGF.

Ann was the daughter of Arthur and Margaret Hill Taylor (9th GGPs). Margaret, our 9th GGM, has no accurate dates that I have found. Arthur was born in 1648, a bit before his parents, John and Margaret Phinney Taylor (10th GGPs) were married August 28, 1649 at St. Mary's Church, Lichfield, Stafford, England. John (10th GGF) was born 1629 and died 1675 in Baltimore.

Arthur, a successful planter, died November 1728.

When We Were Greers, Part III

by Glenn N. Holliman


James Greer Comes to Maryland

The material for this posting comes from a history of Herford County, Maryland and many Joppa, Maryland historical web sites.)

Born in 1627, my generation's 8th great grandfather immigrated from Dumfries, Scotland in 1677, old for a crossing and a new start in life. However, he must have been a young fifty. He married teenager Ann Taylor, born 1660, according to some sources, in Baltimore County, Maryland. Ann was the daughter of large land owner parents, Arthur and Margaret Taylor. Both the Taylors and Greers had land along the Gunpowder River in Joppa, Maryland. 

In the map above of modern Maryland, one will find Joppatown, a new town built in the 1960s on the site of old Joppa. Joppatown (lower middle - left on the map) is just off the busy railway and motor vehicle corridors from Washington, D.C. to Boston. Gunpowder State Park is in light green just south of Joppatown. In the early 1700s, a common phrase in Maryland was that 'all roads lead to Joppa'.

Joppa was located on the Gunpowder River which flowed into the Chesapeake Bay. In the early 1700s Joppa was one of America's main ports as Baltimore City had not yet been founded. Planters like the Greers and Taylors grew tobacco and loaded it on the many wharves at Joppa.

As the back country of Pennsylvania developed in the first half of the 18th century (note map above), German and Scotch-Irish farmers 'rolled' their hogsheads of tobacco to Joppa and sent their crops to England. Joppa prospered but her days of commercial glory were numbered.

The historical marker above stands on the site of St. John's Episcopal Parish, now the site of Church of the Resurrection (Episcopal). The neighborhood was a model community built in the 1960s on the site of Joppa, which by the early 1800s had become a ghost town. Once Joppa was a leading North American port until the Gunpowder River silted up and year by year the number of ocean going vessels declined (along with the fortunes of the Greer families!)