(Wilford W Whitaker - Reseach of Woolsey Manor, Maryland

On A Personal Note
      





18 July 2002
Wilford Whitaker:

I had all these "nagging" questions that run around in the back of my mind, that "nag" at me until I can resolve them.

For example, I ran across WOOLSEY MANOR in Maryland quite early, and I wondered which of the Woolseys had gone into Maryland so early, and then became prosperous enough to call his 1,000 acres "Woolsey Manor".

So I spent an inordinate amount of time, researching the early, colonial records of Maryland, to no avail. I did find where one John Woolsey was "transported" to Maryland in 1666, but that raised problems of its own.

To be "transported" could mean one of several things.

1. England "transported" its hardened criminals to America (and then to Australia and other places) to relieve the over-crowding in their jails.

2. England "transported" its debtors to America to empty its debtors' prisons. These were usually just poor people, unable to pay their debts, and there are quite a few "blue bloods" here in America, if the truth were told, who trace their beginnings to these unfortunate beggars.

3. Settlers were "transported" by a wealthy man to obtain cheap labor. These people were usually "indentured" for a period of years, (seven years was common), to pay off the cost of passage, and then they were 'freed' from their indenture and could become citizens of the new world, if they owned land, etc.

4. A wealthy individual would receive a large grant of land in America, and he would induce his friends and neighbors or his servants and his hired help, to agree to come to America and work with him, in return for their passage and then a plot of land would be deeded to them. This way he could fulfill the obligations of the land grant (which usually stipulated that a settlement had to be made within a stated period of time) and then the land would become his to parcel out or sell as needed.

It appears that this is what happened in Virginia, in which Jacob Woolsey (not our family) was deeded property evidently as above.

Anyway, this "Woolsey Manor" continued to "nag" at me until I ran across Anne Wolseley and Philip Calvert. Then it became apparent that "Woolsey Manor" was a derivation of "Wolseley Manor", for Philip Calvert's
first wife.

This is an excellent example how the two names could be interchanged, but still have no connection whatever.





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