Duvall, Rachel (b. )

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Western Maryland Genealogy
Title: Western Maryland Genealogy

Page: Vol. 8 (1992), No. 1, pp. 3-9, No. 2, pp. 50-55

Given Name: Rachel

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Like his father before him, John Nelson was a major landowner and planter in western Maryland, but seems to have taken little part in the political life of his time. His name appears in the records almost exclusively in matter dealing with the buying and selling of land.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Western Maryland Genealogy
Title: Western Maryland Genealogy

Page: Vol. 8 (1992), No. 1, pp. 3-9, No. 2, pp. 50-55

Given Name: John

Death: BEF 5 OCT 1750 Frederick County, Maryland

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Western Maryland Genealogy
Title: Western Maryland Genealogy

Page: Vol. 8 (1992), No. 1, pp. 3-9, No. 2, pp. 50-55

Given Name: Jane

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: The ancestry of Arthur Nelson is unknown, despite any number of speculations. The idea that he was a Scot is based on his acquisition of a 500-acre tract of land with George Neilson, who is described by a modern professional genealogist as "doubtless a kinsman," although he gives no authority for that statement. Neilson was, undoubtedly, a Scot, as he was transported to Maryland as a Jacobite prisoner of war in 1716.

But Arthur was certainly resident in Maryland no later than about 1706 or 07. he spent much of his life there acquiring and selling land, for which he seemed to have a very considerable appetite even by the standards of his day. Before he began to dispose of much of it late in his very long life, he owned no less than 5719 acres.

Most unusually for a Scotsman, Arthur Nelson was apparently illiterate, signing his name to the many legal papers that survive with an elaborate letter rather than a signature. In the few facts known about him are hints that he was not a very nice man and was perhaps more than a little inclined to penny-pinching. In November 1724, he was charged by his indentured servant, Isaiah Bonnett, with "barbarous treatment." Found guilty, he was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco. Given the standards of the day, when corporal punishment was a matter of course and capital punishment commonplace, one can only wonder what miseries he must have inflicted upon the wretched Bonnett.

Twice, once when near seventy and again when he was about eighty, he petitioned the court to be relieved of taxes, claiming no end of infirmities and difficulties. Both times the court rejected the appeal.

Arthur Nelson seems typical of a particular type of settler in colonial America, one who came from obscurity in the Old World with little more than determination to make a fresh start and did well enough to establish his family on a course that would put it at the top of the social order in the New World within a generation.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Western Maryland Genealogy
Title: Western Maryland Genealogy

Page: Vol. 8 (1992), No. 1, pp. 3-9, No. 2, pp. 50-55

Given Name: Arthur

Death: BEF 7 JAN 1754

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Western Maryland Genealogy
Title: Western Maryland Genealogy

Page: Vol. 8 (1992), No. 1, pp. 3-9, No. 2, pp. 50-55

Given Name: Valentine

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Wedgwood
Title: History of Parliament

Page: Vol. 1, p. 842

Given Name: Margery

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Wedgwood
Title: History of Parliament

Page: Vol. 1, p. 842

Given Name: Thomas

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Wedgwood
Title: History of Parliament

Page: Vol. 1, p. 842

Given Name: ----------

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Wedgwood
Title: History of Parliament

Page: Vol. 1, p. 842

Given Name: Richard

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Langston
Title: J. N. Langston, "Old Catholic Families of Gloucestershire" (Transaction
s of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archeological Society)
s of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archeological Society.

Page: Vol. 71 (1952)

Given Name: Elizabeth

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Langston
Title: J. N. Langston, "Old Catholic Families of Gloucestershire" (Transaction
s of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archeological Society)
s of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archeological Society.

Page: Vol. 71 (1952)

Given Name: Agnes

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Peter Harris was styled "Captain" at the time of his death. He was captured at sea by the French on June 26, 1746, during the War of the Austrian Succession, known as King George's War in North America, and returned to Boston on August 16, 1747.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: NEHGR
Title: New England Historical and Genealogical Register

Page: 156:262-279

Given Name: Peter

Death: 24 FEB 1775 New London, Connecticut

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: NEHGR
Title: New England Historical and Genealogical Register

Page: 156:262-279

Given Name: Mary

Death: AFT 1735

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Peter Harris died of dropsy, what today we would call congestive heart failure, according to a neighbor's diary.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: NEHGR
Title: New England Historical and Genealogical Register

Page: 156:262-279

Given Name: Peter

Death: 25 JAN 1718/19 New London, Connecticut

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Gabriel Harris was born in England a few years before his parents' emigration to Massachusetts.

He was appointed ensign of the training band in New London on May 11 1665 and was made a freeman on Oct 14 1669. He was a carpenter, but that word had a different meaning in the 17th century than it does today, that is to say men who designed and built houses. The modern equivalent would be somewhere between architect and contractor.

On Mar 22 1674/5 he was chosen by the selectmen of the town to run an ordinary, but seems never to have served more than cider and his license was apparently revoked.

Gabriel Harris was prosperous and, like his father, had the honorific "Goodman." The inventory of his estate valued it at £814/6/0. In his will he was able to leave his eldest son property worth two hundred pounds and each of his other six children one hundred pounds. His homestead consisted of a new house, replacing the dwelling of his parents, orchard, cider mill, and smith's shop. Among the personal property left in his will were considerable amounts of clothes (much more highly valued in those days than now, indeed their distribution often made up a significant portion of a person's will), four regular looms as well as a silk loom, three canoes, and an Indian maid-servant, who was valued at fifteen pounds.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Harris
Title: Charles Harris, Walter Harris and Some of His Descendants

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: NEHGR
Title: New England Historical and Genealogical Register

Data:
Text: "Walter and Mary (Fry) Harris of New London, Connecticut," by Gale Ion Harris. Vol. 156, Apr. 2002, pp. 145-158.

Given Name: Gabriel

Death: 16 MAR 1683/84 New London, Connecticut

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Walter Harris's English origins are unknown. But he sailed from Weymouth on Apr 22 1637 with "his wife, six children and three servants" on the ship Speedwell This would indicate that he came from a relatively prosperous background.

He was made a freeman of the colony of Massachusetts Bay on Jun 2 1641, by which time he was living in Weymouth. Records (by no means necessarily complete) indicate that he owned two eight-acre parcels there about 1643. In the late 1640's he appears to have been living in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and was granted land in New London, Connecticut, on May 20 1652, at Pequot Harbor.

He and his wife were above average in economic status, owning a considerable supply of pewter, silver spoons, and such household items. He is referred to as "Goodman Harris," which would indicate a status below those who were called "mister." The house in New London consisted of a front room and shop room with a lean-to on the back and two chambers above. Today it would be called a Cape Cod house.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Harris
Title: Charles Harris, Walter Harris and Some of His Descendants

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: NEHGR
Title: New England Historical and Genealogical Register

Data:
Text: "Walter and Mary (Fry) Harris of New London, Connecticut," by Gale Ion Harris. Vol. 156, Apr. 2002, pp. 145-158.

Given Name: Walter

Death: 6 NOV 1554 New London, Connecticut

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Joseph Truman, like his father before him was a tanner by profession. he was named Constable in 1724.

Given Name: Joseph

Death: AFT 28 DEC 1730

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Mary

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Joseph Truman came from a Cornish family, according to the Truman Genealogy, but was born in Nottinghamshire. He appears in New London in 1666, along with his wife, whose name is unknown.

The following year he was named Constable, a position of considerable prestige in those days. And in that year he bought some pits for tanning leather, a profession he carried on for the rest of his life. He later operated two tanneries.

Truman Brook and Truman Street in New London are named for him.

Given Name: Joseph

Death: 1697 New London, Connecticut

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Francis Bushnell was one of the founders of Guilford and he (or possibly his son, Francis the younger) signed the Plantation Covenant. He immigrated to Connecticut on the ship Planter in 1635.

Among his descendants are David Busnell, who built the world's first submarine, the Turtle, at the time of the American Revolution, and Cornelius Bushnell, who financed the building of the Monitor in the Civil War.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: NEHGR--CONN.
Title: Genealogies of Connecticut Families

Page: Vol. I, pp. 262-272

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Hale, House
Title: Donald Lines Jacobus, Hale, House and Related Families: Mainly of the C
onnecticut River Valley (Baltimore: Genalogical Publishiong Company, 19
78)
onnecticut River Valley
onnecticut River Valley. Baltimore: Genalogical Publishiong Company, 19
78.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: TAG
Title: The American Genealogist

Page: Vol. 16, pp. 45-49.

Given Name: Francis

Death: BEF 13 OCT 1646 Guilford, Connecticut

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003