Maryland
Founder of Maryland
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, was born 1580 in Kiplin, in the parish of Catterick, Yorkshire, son of Leonard Calvert and Alice (nee Crossland). He became secretary to Robert Cecil, Secretary of State to Elizabeth I and James I. This brought Calvert into a favourable situation to ask the king requests. Calvert held stocks in the Virginia Company, so was interested in the New World. In 1629 he had visited Jamestown but was not welcomed by the Virginians because of relgious differences. Calvert had converted to Catholicism. So he asked Charles I to grant him a colony north of the Potomac River. Before the charter's final approval in 1632, Calvert died in London, aged 52. The grant was passed on to his son and heir, Cecilius, who had been named after Robert Cecil.
Cecilius had been made a palatine and an 'Absolute Lord of Maryland and Avalon.' Meaning that he could make laws, choose community leaders, make decisions about taking more land and the selling of land between settlers. Because Cecilius was having problems in England concerning his inheritance and other legal matters he decided not to go with the colonists but sent his brothers, Leonard and George in his stead. Leonard was appointed governor. Twenty gentlemen and three hundred labourers embarked on the Calvert's two ships, the Dove and the Ark, in Cowes harbour in 1633.
Cecilius, Lord Baltimore paid for the expedition with excellent provisions of tools, seeds, animals etc, so that the colony was in better shape in two years than jamestown was over many more years. He had planned to join the colony as soon as he could. He governed through deputies, promoting religious tolerance. He died in 1675, never having lived in Maryland.
William Bladen
William Bladen, born 1673 Steeton, Yorkshire went to live in Maryland in 1690. In two short years he was hired by Governor Copley to take care of all of his legal and business affairs. He was admitted to the Inner Temple and moved to Annapolis when the capital moved there. When he died in Annaplolis in 1718 he owned 6,000 acres, 26 slaves, 9 servants, a printing press and books.
Cawthorn
Charles CAWTHORN was born 1700 in Silkstone, Yorkshire. In 1720 he was sentenced to be transported to the New World. The ship he sailed on from London was the Gilbert, his destination was Maryland. Later, he moved to Virginia where he married Elizabeth Womack.Cresap
Col. Thomas Cresap (1702-1790) was born in Skipton, Yorkshire. He had arrived in Maryland when he was 15. He became a frontiersman while Daniel Boone was still a baby. In the late 1730s he patented a 550 acre tract of land close to the Potomac. He called it Long Meadow and built a log house on it. In 1741, he moved to another tract of land which he called Skipton. George Washington was a frequent visitor to Cresap's second stoutly built log cabin. Washington wrote in his journals of his visits to see the elderly man. A Yorkshire emigrant, Cresap was the founder of the first white settlement in Allegany County.
Crabtree
William CRABTREE (1681-1756) born Broughton, Yorkshire; died in Baltimore County, Maryland. William went to America as a bonded servant to a James Hogg, as a husbandman. With his family, William settled along Deer Creek, which flows into the Susquehanna River near Port Deposit. The Crabtree family grew and prospered in the New World. William increased his land holdings and was even able to purchase the services of an Irish indentured servant. In 1716 he received a grant of land of 100 acres. He died in 1756. His son, William, who had been born in Yorkshire and came to Maryland as an infant, followed in his father's footsteps and "farmed the the fertile bottomlands of Northeast Maryland.
