When We Were Greers, Part X

by Glenn N. Holliman

More on Nicholas Day, my Generation's 8th Great Grandfather
and William the Conqueror!

I thought I had exhausted my notes on the Greers, Days and Taylors in Joppa Town, Maryland when I chanced upon some more materials. Below is information in part from Wally Garchow at Ancestry.com. His work adds to the tapestry we have on our Chesapeake Bay roots.

The date of birth for Nicholas Day is uncertain, anywhere from 1620 to 1635, but he seems to have come from Wales. He died before February 4, 1704/5. Queen Anne would be on the throne of England at that time, and Maryland a colony for 70 odd years. Philadelphia had been founded only a quarter century before, so the British settlement of North America was still unfolding.

In the General Land Office Patents, the Land Commissioner's Office in Annapolis, is a statement that on February 22, 1658, "Nicholas Day, a grown man sells himself into 'slave bondage' for 'ship transportation' to the New World. He along with seven others bound himself to Richard Owens who granted them their freedom and notified his 'Lordship Grace' that they were entitled to 50 acres of land." Our 8th great grandfather evidently was an indentured servant who put in his time, and then began a successful transition to that of a colonial land owner and planter.

June 3, 1693, this great grandfather of ours purchased 200 acres of land along the Gunpowder River, a tract called 'William the Conqueror'. He paid 1200 pounds of tobacco for this extravagantly named acreage near the Gunpowder Falls. A few months later he bought another 150 acres for 300 pounds of tobacco, a piece named 'Lesser Chance'. He held onto this land until his death, when he bequeathed it to Nicholas Jr.

His daughter, Sarah Day - named after her mother - received part of his stock of 'hoggs'. Well, Sarah had married John Greer, Sr. in 1704, and lived on Greer land. Of course, no one knew how troubled Sarah's marriage to John Greer, Sr. (my generation's 7th great grandfather) would be, and that he would be hauled before a parish vestry in Joppa and charged with infidelity. Embarrassing to say the least.

The land 'William the Conqueror'? Purchased eventually by a King family who gave their name to a rural village along the Gunpowder. Google Kingsville, Maryland and 'William the Conqueror' and discover an area map and photographs of more recent colonial buildings. A marker stone with Edward Day's name on it near Highway 1 still stands. Edward Day was a descendant of our Nicholas Day.

The Gunpowder River below the Falls at Joppa Town, Maryland down stream from Kingsville, Maryland. Here the river is silted and marshy just before it flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Photo by the writer 2010.

However, the point of this article to demonstrate a rags to riches story of a great grand father, who evidently arrived as an indentured servant and died a man of some means. This is a prototype example of the America Dream in the life of an ancestor.

For more information and photographs, go to the Greater Kingsville Civic Association, Inc. on the web.

When We Were Greers, Part IV

by Glenn N. Holliman

In the early 1700s, our Ancestors Prospered along the Gunpowder River

Much of this article is from Maryland's Early Settlers Book, No. 18 under James Greer.

On Ancestory.com one will find family trees under Greer, Taylor and Day.

By 1688 the marriage of James Greer, first generation Scotsman to Maryland, and Ann Taylor (my generations 8th great grand parents (8th GGP), resulted in the birth of John Greer, Sr (b. between 1682 - 1688). John, Sr. in 1704 married Sarah Day (my generation's 7th great grandparents), the daughter of Nicholas and Sarah Day (my generation's 8th great grandparents) at St. John's Episcopal parish at Joppa, then Baltimore County, now Herford county.

The church was an unpainted log structure, 20 ft by 40 ft that soon, as did most untreated wooden structures, crumbled before the elements. Today, the Edgewood Officer's Club of the famous Aberdeen Proving Ground occupies the site.

Days Cove, named after our Day family line, is a backwater bay of the Gunpowder River near Joppatown, Maryland. Our 8th great grandfather, Nicholas Day, owned land here near Interstate 95 and Highway 40, the Pulaski Highway. Photostaken October 2010 by Glenn N. Holliman along Highway 40, the Pulaski Highway , south of Joppatown.


John and Sarah (7th great grandparents), purchased land near her father's plantation, Nicholas Day, along the Great Falls of the Gunpowder River. John's grandfather John Taylor (10th great grandfather), father of Arthur Taylor (9th great grandfather), lived near the ferry along the south side of the Gunpowder.

The old map belows shows Joppa, the Gunpowder, a ferry and the first roads in what is now Herford County, Maryland. The current major port of Baltimore is west of Joppa, not shown on this map.

We know that in 1687, Arthur Taylor sold 75 acres of land from 'Arthur's Choice on the south side of a branch of the Gunpowder River, called Bird Run to James Greer and daughter, Ann Taylor Greer. Bird Run is now the Bird River which flows through a modern suburban mall in Whitemarch, Maryland, not far from Days Cove. Arthur Taylor was the oldest son of one John Taylor. Arthur had acquired the property in 1683. This land will eventually become the site of Joppa, a major port that later disappears and becomes a classic American ghost town.

Ironically, also along the Gunpowder another family, the Stansberys, had settled. Stansberys live in and around Baltimore to this day. One of the Stansbery families will treck south in the 1700s, and generations later will result in my grandfather, Charles S. Stansbery, Sr. (1893 - 1957). Charles will marry Mayme Osborne, whose grand mother was, yes, one Caroline Greer Wilson (1828 - 1911). My immediate family has deep Maryland roots!