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 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!

A 2012 Veterans' Day Salute

by Glenn N. Holliman

U.S. Army, Vietnam 1969

A Thank You to our Veterans in 2012

Our family members have been represented in our country's battles from Colonial Chesapeake to the 21st Century Middle Eastern Wars. As it is impossible to list all of them in any kind of complete listing, I will let my nephew, Capt. Jonathan Murphy, USA, take the salute for all who been on active duty, the Reserves or National Guard. Jonathan is on duty somewhere in Afghanistan, his second tour in four years. His family waits for him in the States.

For a time he was Captain of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, DC. Below are two photographs - one of Jonathan leading his platoon up the steps of the Memorial and the second of him walking the Guard. For those of us who have stood on guard in other fields and seas, including my father, uncles, nephews and cousins, we express our appreciation to him and all relatives who have gone before him.

Among his ancestors are veterans of the French and Indian War, Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, World War II, Viet Nam, the Cold War and recent Middle East conflicts. One great grandfather, Luke Stansbery (1750 - 1848), was a prisoner of war of the British in Charleston, SC 1780 during the American Revolution.

Update: Lt. Col. Jonathan Murphy retired from the U.S. Army in 2023, after twenty years of active duty, an Army Special Forces officer and veteran of dangerous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.