| Name: | Thomas Dutton |
| Born: | about 1660 probably Cheshire, England |
| Died: | about 1695 William and Mary Parish, Charles County, Maryland |
| Married: | Elizabeth (Hill) Dutton about 1690 in Charles County, Maryland |
| Children: | Elizabeth (Dutton) Penn, Matthew Dutton, Notley Dutton (b. 1694), Edith Dutton |
Overview
Thomas Dutton was the immigrant ancestor and patriarch of the Dutton family in Charles County, Maryland. He came to Charles County in the year 1680, forty-six years after the first settlers of the colony landed in neighboring St. Mary's County. Thomas's birthplace, parentage, and origin, are not documented.
Thomas married Elizabeth Hill sometime before about 1690, and they gave birth to four children that are known or that survived to adulthood. Thomas's death is also not well documented, but he appears to have died shortly after his children were born, around 1695.
This page seeks to present the primary sources that are known about Thomas Dutton's life and address any uncertainty and misconceptions surrounding him.
Birth
We say that Thomas Dutton was born about 1660, but in truth, this is a speculation, little more than a guess. A person who would pack up and journey to the New World, to settle in a new colony on a new continent, would be most likely to be a young man, and about twenty years old is a very rough guess. This isn't at all a certainty. He could have been thirty, forty, or even sixty years old, for all we know.
And so, attempts to identify Thomas Dutton with any birth or baptism record in Cheshire, England, are inherently unfounded. We don't know his precise age or birthdate or even know for certain that he came from Cheshire. So it you find a tree purporting to know Thomas Dutton's parents — it had better have some convincing documentation, more than just the birth or baptism record of a person named Thomas Dutton born in 1660.
Immigration and origins
Thomas Dutton entered Charles County, Maryland, in the year 1680, aboard the ship of John Redich, merchant. On 9 July 1680, John Redich made entry of the rights of twenty people; that is, under headright system, he paid for the transport of twenty people into Maryland, and would receive a reward of land for each. Thomas probably did not arrive on this exact date, but shortly prior.
John Redich identified himself as a resident of Charles County, Maryland, and was accompanied by Tabitha Redich, possibly his wife. He assigned the headrights received in this transport to John Baker "of St. Marie's" (presumably St. Mary's County, Maryland).
The origin of the transport or of the people named in this document is not specified, but we have every reason to believe that the ship originated in wikipedia:Cheshire, England, or its vicinity, because of the surnames of the people transported. At least seven surnames have a definite connection to Cheshire:
- Cartington – "Habitational name from a place in Greater Manchester (formerly in Cheshire) called Partington."[1]
- Dutton – a town in Cheshire, and "a very ancient Cheshire family".[2]
- Haughton – a town in Cheshire.
- Maddock – from Madoc, an ancient Welsh personal name. Cheshire borders Wales, and the port city of Chester is in the northwest, near the Welsh border.[3]
- Manwaring – a "celebrated family" of Cheshire, since the time of William the Conqueror.[4]
- Minshall – "Habitational name from a pair of villages in Cheshire, on either side of the Weaver river, recorded Munschulf in medieval documents."[5]
- Shrigley – "Habitational name from Shrigley in Macclesfield (Cheshire), which is recorded as Scriglegh in the 14th century."[6]
References
- ↑ "Cartington" on FamilySearch.org, citing Patrick Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names (2003, 2006).
- ↑ Mark Antony Lower, Patronymica Britannica: A Dictionary of the Family Names of the United Kingdom (London: J. R. Smith, 1860), 216, 98.
- ↑ Lower, 212.
- ↑ Lower, 216, 213.
- ↑ "Minshall" on FamilySearch.org, citing Patrick Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names (2003, 2006).
- ↑ "Shrigley" on FamilySearch.org, citing Patrick Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names (2003, 2006).