TWELFTH GENERATION

3558. Thomas Gerard ^{(20) (179)(311) (312)} was born before Dec 10 1608. He died in 1673 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Thomas Gerard, from an ancient Lancashire family that is also ancestral to Oliver Manwaring (No. 1858), was trained as a surgeon and immigrated to Maryland in 1638. He visited England in 1640. Returning to Maryland, he brought five servants with him and by 1648 had imported over forty. He sold his English holdings and brought his family over in 1650. He owned the manors of St. Clement's, Basford, and Westwood Manors in St. Mary's County. He exercised the right to hold manorial courts, the only Maryland Lord of the Manor to do so, and had a celebrated lawsuit with his in-laws regarding extensive property holdings. By the end of his life he was one of the greatest landowners in Maryland, holding over 16,000 acres in Maryland as well as an additional 3,500 in Virginia.

Himself a Catholic, both his wife and his children were Protestants. He built a Protestant chapel for the use of his family and tenants, but in an incident that is much recorded in Maryland history but unfathomable, he locked the chapel. He was fined for interfering with Protestant worship, an action regarded as important in establishing Maryland's policy of religious toleration.

Gerard is remembered for both the quantity and quality of his sons-in-law. He is known to have had fourteen, spread among five daughters. His daughter Frances married as her fourth husband John Washington, the great grandfather of George Washington, but had no children by him. It is often said that John Washington's second wife, Anne, was also a daughter of Thomas Gerard, but the evidence for this is slim at best. His eldest daughter, Susannah, married John Coode, the rebel against Maryland's proprietary government, as her second husband. He led the "Orange Revolt" against the proprietor in 1689.

He served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature from 1638 to 1642 and in the upper house in 1658-1660. He served on the Governor's Council from 1643 to 1649 and then from 1651 to 1660 (although he was suspended for a year in Oct 1658 for maligning other members). He was a justice of the provincial court from 1643 to 1649 and again from 1651 to 1660. He was frequently at odds with the proprietor and supported Fendall's rebellion in 1659/60, for which he was permanently barred from holding office or voting in the colony.

He moved to Virginia in 1664 but was buried in St. Clement's, Maryland. He was married to Susanna Snow in 1629.

3559. Susanna Snow⁽¹⁷⁹⁾. Children were:

i. Justinian Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
ii. Thomas Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
iii. Susannah Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
iv. Frances Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
v. Temperance Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
vi. Elizabeth Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
vii. John Gerard⁽³¹¹⁾.
1779 viii. Mary Gerard.

Return to Table of Contents