The Wilson family ancestors on this page fall into two main categories: English Quakers who settled in Pennsylvania and Scottish or Scots-Irish Presbyterians who, soon after arriving in America, moved West. Some early ancestors were both Quakers and slave owners who settled in Northern Virginia.
The Wilson family from the earliest arrival were Quakers with their American roots going back to the Delmarva peninsula along with Eyre and Nock families. Isaac broke the Quaker tradition and also was the first to strike out for the West in Tennessee. The next two generations migrated to Kentucky and then Indiana.
How We're Related
Louise Wilson
Louise Wilson married William Ambrose Stevens on February 25, 1889. Louise's father James had died soon after her birth in 1866. She may have been the first female college student in the family, attending Hanover College, the oldest private college in Indiana. She received musical education from Professor Bates at the Bates Conservatory of Music in Columbus and was involved in many musical performances in town as a singer. Louise died at home from cancer in 1931.
A religious digression
My cousin William Stevens relates a family story about Louise Wilson whose rich great uncle died and left her as heir to a significant inheritance. But the story goes that she was a proud person, whose family had disowned her when she followed her husband’s Catholic faith, so she spurned the fortune. Although this may be apocryphal, it does bring up the question of where the Stevens Catholic religion comes from. Louise's great grandparents (Wilson) had been Quakers but her grandfather (see Isaac below) had been disowned by the Society of Friends. Louise's parents were married at home of Methodist minister. We know that Louise's mother's religion was Presbyterian -- she was buried in a Presbyterian service and Louise's uncle, Rev. R.C. McGee, was a Presbyterian missionary in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
Frank Stevens' obituary states that he was not a church goer but his son, William Ambrose, was very active in the Catholic church.
The best guess is that the influence came from William Ambrose's mother Catherine Brown who was reported to be a devout Catholic and went to St Mary's school as a girl. That must have reflected the faith of her parents, Edward and Mary Ann (Hubbard) Brown.
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James Wilson married Charlotte McGee in Louisville, Kentucky on February 2, 1865.
In 1850 James was living 25 miles away from his father and step mother in New Washington, Indiana. James was possibly apprenticed to shoemaker, Levi Wanner, with whose family he was living.
James was an aide-de-camp to General Jefferson C. Davis Indiana 22nd Regiment during Civil War. He sketched a drawing of soldiers crossing a bridge during the war that has been passed down in my family.
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Isaac Wilson married Sina Choate in Cumberland, Tennessee in 1816. Isaac was born a twin but his brother, Robert, died in infancy. Isaac had been disowned by the Quakers three years earlier when he was 21. The cause of his disownment was "not attending to the restraining principle of divine grace in his own mind, he engaged in business beyond his abilities to manage and hath fallen short in the payment of his just debts, and hath also violated our christian testimony against the taking of oaths; for all which he hath been tenderly treated with, but our endeavors not appearing to have the desired effect we therefore testify that we do not consider him a member of our religious society until from a due sense of his transgression he becomes qualified to be rightly restored which we desire may be his experience."[1]
After his disownment Isaac apparently moved on from Philadelphia to Tennessee where he married Sina. They moved to New Washington, Indiana in the late 1820s. He seems to have had no further contact with his family. Their family history says that Isaac "went to Ohio when a young man, and all trace of him was lost to his family." Not surprisingly, descendants of Isaac and Sina had no connection with the Quaker church.
After Sina died in 1839, Isaac remarried Perdilla Dixon and in 1850 they were living in Clark County, Indiana where his occupation was as a cabinet maker.
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John Wilson married Elizabeth Pyle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 4, 1791. John's first wife, Sarah Kenne with whom he had three children, died in 1790.
Fitch's steamboat built by John Wilson
John Wilson and his partner, Boyer Brooke built the first steam engine for inventor John Fitch's famous steamboat in 1786. In 1787 it traveled between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey. It was an odd machine -- propelled by a set of Indian-canoe paddles. The cost of building the boat was £52. Yet, by the summer of 1790 Fitch used it in a successful passenger line between Philadelphia and Trenton. He logged some 3000 miles at 6 to 8 mph that summer. But in the end it failed commercially. Although Robert Fulton did not launch a boat until after Fitch died, he received more credit for originating this type of transportation.
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Thomas Wilson married Ruth Hoskins on June 13, 1754 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Thomas received land from his father called "The Addition," in Kent County on the Delaware.
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James Wilson married Sarah Nock in January 1728 in a Quaker ceremony at Duck Creek Hundred, Kent, Delaware. James' first wife Mary had died earlier. James, the oldest son, inherited half of his father's tanyard and 52 acres of land. James evidently chose shoemaking for his branch of the leather business, and was later called cordwainer. In his younger days he had been active in the affairs of the Meeting, but his will suggests that he had left that faith.
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James Wilson married Sarah Durden in Talbot County, Maryland about 1692. James was a Quaker tanner who settled in the upper reaches of the Choptank River in Talbot County, Maryland. Between 1693 and 1721 he acquired several tracts of land around Kingston, in Talbot County.
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Scottish connection
James Cunningham Wilson married Margaret Kidd. James emigrated from Scotland to Maryland in 1651 where he married the much younger Margaret. James' ancestors particularly on the Cunningham side of his family trace back through significant Scottish history.
James' wife Margaret was born to Rev. William Kidd III and Margaret Deare. William came first to Virginia in about 1662 then migrated to Maryland in 1664, probably to escape persecution for being a Quaker. He had probably left England originally because of the same persecution. William was a planter and a member of the Quaker group Friends of Herring Creek Meeting. He was a slave owner, leaving his son-in-law "my negro woman" and "one negro boy" to his son in his will.
It has been reported in many family trees that they also had a son, William Kidd who became the notorious Captain Kidd, the pirate who was eventually put on trial and hung in London in 1701. This has been disproven.
The McGees arrived from Scotland and after the Revolution moved to western Pennsylvania. The next generation moved first to Kentucky and then to Indiana.
How We're Related
Charlotte McGee married James Wilson on February 2, 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky. In the 1850 census they had lived just a few miles from each other in New Washington and Owen Township, Indiana. By 1870, James had died and Charlotte and four-year-old Louise were living with Charlotte's mother Tamar and another family in New Washington, Indiana. Charlotte spent most of her life in southern Indiana along the Ohio River.
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William McGee married Tamar Thom in Charlestown, Indiana on March 25, 1826.
William, was a farmer and saddler who was born in Somerset, Pennsylvania and had moved to Indiana with his mother Isabella after his father's death. He received a letter from his cousin James Park, still back in Pennsylvania dated June 16th 1832. It shows the precariousness of frontier life …”about the beginning of July 1831 Brother John's wife was confined and appeared to recover, however in the course of a month she began to grow weak and her debility increased until her decease which happened about three months after her confinement to child bed. John is there fore again a widower and compelled to shape his way through an unfriendly and (sic) unsnaring world with a family of three small children..”
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Robert McGee married Isabella Park on June 13, 1780. Charlotte's grandfather, Lieut. Robert Arthur McGee, Sr., who probably came to America from Scotland with his parents Patrick and Jean, was wounded during the Revolutionary War by the British at Millstone, New Jersey, on June 20, 1777. A British foraging party was flanked and driven off by forces composed mostly of New Jersey militia under Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson, depriving the British of their wagons and supplies.
Robert later settled on Chartiers Creek, Washington County, in western Pennsylvania. He died of smallpox in 1797 and his wife, Isabella, moved first to Kentucky with her children and then to Clark County, Indiana.
There is a story that the Stevens family was related on this side to oil money (presumably related to Kerr McGee an Oklahoma energy company by way of Dean A. McGee (1904-1989), a geologist who started Kerr-McGee Oil Industries. I could find no evidence of this relationship.
Samuel and his wife quickly moved to western Pennsylvania after immigrating. His daughter later moved to Kentucky and finally Indiana
How We're Related
Isabella Park married Robert McGee on June 13, 1780. Two years earlier, Isabella had traveled with two of her brothers to set up a family cabin in Cecil Township in Western Pennsylvania in preparation for the rest of her family settling there. After Robert's death in 1796 she moved to with her children to Nelson County, Kentucky and then later to Clark County, Indiana.
A family note
The name Park as carried on for many generations in the family. Isabella and Robert's son was William Park McGee and my grandfather was William Park Stevens, known as "Uncle Park" to his nieces and nephews. My uncle was William Park Stevens, Jr.
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Samuel Park married Margaret Marshall in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1757. Samuel and Margaret both came from Northern Ireland, most likely of Scots-Irish ancestry. They crossed the ocean on the same ship but were not married until reaching the United States around 1757.[2] They first settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where they had five children before moving farther west. He was one of the earliest settlers within the territory that is now Cecil township in Western Pennsylvania. In the autumn of 1777, he came over the Allegheny Mountains in search of land on which to make a home. He purchased from Matthew Rodgers a parcel of land, containing five hundred and sixty-six acres. After the purchase, he returned to his home at Lancaster (250 miles away) and prepared to move his family. His sons were sent on in advance to build a cabin, clear the land, and put in a crop. Their sister, Isabella, went with them as housekeeper. After a home was prepared the rest of the family moved to the farm. Samuel Parks lived on the "Deer Park" tract till his death in 1794, aged sixty-five.
There is no documented information about Samuel's parents but an interesting possibility is William Park and Anna Woodside from Ballynure, County Antrim, Ireland. They were married about 1725 and it is reported that a son emigrated (but usually it is said to Australia). It could be Samuel.
Nothing is known about the Northern Irish roots of Margaret Marshall.
The first Thom immigrant, Joseph, arrived from Northern Ireland (he was Scots-Irish) and a few years later fought in the Revolutionary War and moved to Pennsylvania soon afterwards. His descendants soon moved on to Indiana.
How We're Related
Tamar Thom, married William McGee on March 25, 1826 in Charlestown, Indiana. Tamar had been born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and came to Indiana with her parents when she was seven years old. At the end of her life she was living with her daughter Charlotte on a farm near Charlestown.
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William Thom married Charlotte Austin about 1806. William and Charlotte moved to Indiana in about 1814 and settled in the town of Madison and a few years later moved to a farm in Clark County near Charlestown. That farm sits near the present Owen Creek Presbyterian Church.
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Revolutionary War Commemoration
Joseph Thom married Elizabeth Craig in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania in 1778. Joseph had emigrated from northern Ireland with his brother in 1773 and was a mill builder.
Joseph emigrated from County Down, Northern Ireland in 1773 and four years later was at the Revolutionary War Battle of Brandywine, fought Sep 11, 1777, in Pennsylvania. The battle, which was a decisive victory for the British, left Philadelphia, the revolutionary capital, undefended. The British captured the city on Sep 26th, beginning an occupation that would last until June, 1778. Thom later served as a private in Captain White's company of the Fifth Battalion of the Pennsylvania Militia in the year 1782.
Joseph and Elizabeth lived a peripatetic existence. They first lived in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, just east of Pittsburgh, then north to Scrubgrass Creek and later to Clarion River, all in Pennsylvania. Finally they moved to Jefferson County, Indiana.
In Hovey Township, Pennsylvania on the Allegheny River, Joseph was a pioneer settler on the stream which is still known as "Thom’s Run". He built the first sawmill in this part of the county and operated it for several years. He sold his tract to Elisha Robinson in about 1815 and moved away. The Robinson farm became one of the most noted properties in the entire oil region when oil was struck October 10, 1865. It is estimated that the oil pumped from this farm from the first discovery up to the present time must have reached the value of nearly $2,000,000. There are still several producing wells yielding from 200 to 300 barrels daily.
Members of the Austin family have their earliest known origins in New Jersey.
How We're Related
Charlotte Austin married William Thom about 1806. After William's death in 1830, Charlotte married twice more. The third husband was James McGee, her daughter's husband's older brother.
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Moses Austin married Sarah (last name unknown) in October, 1775 in Evesham, New Jersey. Moses was baptized in the 1st Presbyterian Church of Morristown, the iron mine region of New Jersey. Moses and Sarah moved to Scrubgrass Township in Western Pennsylvania.
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Jonah Austin married Mary (last name unknown) in New Jersey. Their origins are uncertain but there is circumstantial evidence that Jonah may be a descendant of Richard Austin (1598-1638), a tailor from Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England who immigrated with his wife Elizabeth and two sons Richard and Anthony on board the Bevis, setting sail in April from Southhampton and landing May 16, 1638 in Boston Harbor. The family settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
The Wilson-related Craig family most likely descended from Andrew Craig who arrived in New Jersey as an indentured servant from Scotland. His grandson fought in the Revolutionary War and later settled in Pennsylvania. His great granddaughter gained fame from sewing one of the first flags of the Revolution.
How We're Related
Westmoreland Rattlesnake Flag
Elizabeth Craig married Joseph Thom in 1778 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth arrived with her family in Westmoreland County in 1769.
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania adopted a flag for its own use before the colonies had conceived the idea of a general flag for all of the American troops. This classic "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the "Rattlesnake Flag of Colonel John Proctor's 1st Battalion Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania" was, according to family tradition, sewed and embroidered by 18-year-old Elizabeth. Samuel Craig, Sr. was the original color bearer. It is the oldest banner representing what is now the United States; it now resides in the William Penn Memorial Museum.
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Samuel Craig married Elizabeth McDonald in 1752 in Warren County, New Jersey. They were the parents of nine children including twin daughters that so closely resembled each other that their own mother couldn't tell them apart. A smallpox epidemic devastated the family, killing one of the twins and another daughter and blinding the other twin. Samuel's wife Elizabeth died in 1761 and he soon remarried Jane Boyd. The family moved to Western Pennsylvania. It is said that Samuel Craig and family started a trek from New Jersey to Western Pennsylvania in 1766, but when they were on the mountains the Indians stole their horses and cows, and they were compelled to return to a settlement in eastern Pennsylvania. Samuel acquired a parcel in Westmoreland County and the family settled there in 1769.
In the Revolutionary War Samuel was Lieutenant and color-bearer in the First Battalion, Westmoreland County Provincials. The Battalion fought with George Washington in 1776 and in 1777 was ordered back to Westmoreland County to protect the frontier against Indians. Samuel and three of his sons became a part of the militia that was organize at Hannaton on May 16,1777. On 1st. November 1777 Lt. Craig was traveling to Ligonier to get salt. His horse was found dead on Chestnut Ridge, and he was never seen again. A few years later there was a rumor that he had been taken prisoner by Indians, exchanged for a British officer, and died near Philadelphia on his way home. On April 25, 1783 letters of administration were granted for the estate of Samuel Craig, deceased, by the Register of Wills in and for Westmoreland County to Jane Craig, widow, and John Craig (b. 1753), his son.
Elizabeth, Samuel's first wife, was the daughter of Thomas McDonald, an immigrant from Inverness, Scotland. Elizabeth and two of her infant children died in 1760 of smallpox.
Hanna's town resolves
The Hanna's Town Resolves were one of the most direct challenges to British authority in their North American colonies preceding the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionary War. Before most other colonial communities took a stand, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania residents proclaimed their willingness to take drastic measures to maintain and defend their rights against British oppression.
On May 16, 1775, settlers in the far west of Pennsylvania, along with Arthur St. Clair (The Penn government’s local representative) gathered at the tavern, which was also serving as the courthouse, in Hanna's Town (or Hannastown near present-day Greensburg, Pennsylvania) and affixed their names to the Hanna's Town Resolves agreeing to bind themselves together and to take up arms if necessary to resist further "tyrannical" acts of Parliament. More than a year later, the Declaration of Independence would be signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[3]
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A genealogy note
Craig connection confidence level
Samuel Craig's ancestors are in dispute but the following is a best guess.
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John Craig married Sarah Frazee about 1731 in New Jersey.
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Scottish connection
Andrew Craig married Susannah Eakin in Ayrshire, Scotland on November 6, 1683. Andrew Craig immigrated to Elizabeth-town, East Jersey, from northeast Scotland in October 1684 as an indentured servant to John Forbes of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In 1699-1700, Craig was admitted as an Associate and in a lottery won title to 100 acres within the boundaries of the present town of Westfield. It is tradition that the Craigs fled from religious persecution in Scotland to the north of Ireland, but finding it little better in Ireland, came to America; exiles for their allegiance to the principals of Presbyterianism.
The Wilson-ancestor Frazee family are Scots that settled in New Jersey. The name is recorded with several spellings, including Frazey, Frasey, Frazie, Phrasie, but mostly as Frazee.
How We're Related
Sarah Frazee married John Craig about 1731 in New Jersey.
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Edward Frazee married Mercy Oliver in Elizabethtown, New Jersey around 1697. Edward was an Overseer of Highways in Elizabethtown in 1718. In 1687, Edward and his father, Joseph, became original members of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethtown, N.J.
Mercy was the daughter of Samuel Oliver who married Mary Higgins in about 1682 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. They had 10 children. Samuel owned a farm and a saw and grist mill. Samuel's parents were immigrants, William Oliver and Mary Ackerly.
Mary Ackerly was the daughter of Henry Ackerly. The first record of Henry in America is a record from the New Haven Colony court held in 1640. Henry appears to have moved from New Haven to Stamford, which was an offshoot of the New Haven Colony, about 1641-1642. In 1649, "Henerry Acerly" was a witness in a Stamford court case against Mark Menlove for profaning the name of god. Henry was a house carpenter and farmer. Henry probably moved from Stamford to Greenwich about 1652.
In 1653, during First Anglo-Dutch War, Henry testified that he was at the house of Isaac Allerton in New Amsterdam, with Captain Underhill and George Wolsey and wife, when an Englishman told them that he had overheard the Dutch talking about the Indians poisoning the water and burning the houses of the English. Henry supposedly rushed back to the New Haven Colony to inform them of the danger.
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Scottish connection
Joseph Frazee married Posthume (last name unknown) about 1660 in New Jersey. Joseph had traveled from Aberdeen, Scotland to Perth Amboy, New Jersey on a British transport ship called the Caledonia. He first settled in Rowley, Massachusetts but in 1665, Joseph relocated and became one of the original settlers of colonial Elizabethtown. Joseph signed the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity taken by the Inhabitants of Elizabeth Town and the Jurisdiction thereof in 1665. Joseph was a Yeoman, an old English term that means he was a landowner of middle means who farmed his own land. His lands were mostly along the Rahway river; and the family settled eventually in Westfield and New Providence. A tract of land on the Passaic river has, in consequence of their locating upon it, been called, "Frazeys Meadows." After the death of his first wife he married Mary Osborn on June 17, 1693 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.
The Choate family related to the Wilsons first settled in Maryland and became planters and significant land owners there. But after two generations the family moved West and Sina Choate's immediate ancestors were undoubtedly some of the earliest settlers in Tennessee.
How We're Related
Sina Choate married Isaac Wilson in 1816 in Cumberland, Tennessee. She was born in Tennessee in 1794, two years before Tennessee became a state, but we don’t have definitive information about her background.
Choate connection confidence level
Whenever one tries to trace their ancestry, they inevitably find themselves at a dead end for some relative where there seems to be no documentation of their parents. That was the case with Sina Choate. But there was other information. There is significant DNA evidence that we have a genetic connection to the Southern Choate family[4]. In contrast to another branch of the Choates that settled in the North, the records for the Southern Choates is very spotty.
Sina was born and married in Tennessee which probably means that she had other family there. In fact there were many other Choates living in Tennessee at the time of Sina's birth in 1794. There was Christopher Choate, Squire Choate, David Choate, and others. One ancestor they all have in common is Christopher Choate and either one of his sons Christopher or Richard.
The first white man to settle permanently in what is now Tennessee was William Bean. Bean built a cabin in 1768 near the Watauga River, on Boone's Creek. William Bean came to this area from Pittsylvania Co VA, where in 1767 he lived very near Richard Choate. Several years later many people from Pittsylvania Co had settled in this area of Tennessee. These early settlers thought they were in Virginia Territory. It appears that Christopher and his family and his brother Richard and his family followed William Bean to Tennessee for the opportunity of land.
It is documented that this branch moved extensively through the South with various relatives living in Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. It is possible that Sina is the offspring of Civil War veteran Christopher Choate who died in McNairy, Tennessee about 1835. He was the son Richard Choate and the great grandson of Christopher Choate, the first Choate immigrant who came to Maryland in 1676 as an indentured servant.
The Choate family men were among the first hunters and settlers of Tennessee and it is very likely that they married into the local native population. Richard’s brother Christopher III and Christopher’s son (Christopher IV) may have been married to Cherokees.
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So until other evidence comes to light we will assume that Sina is the great grand-daughter of Christopher Choat II who married Flora in 1719 in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1722 Christopher Choate, planter, bought a tract of 108 acres called "Choate's Fancy" After disposing of Choates Fancy in 1742, Christopher II joined with William Hall, who was in possession of fifty acres in Baltimore County called Hall's Approach, in a swine raising venture, the tract being too small for tobacco planting
In 1711 he supposedly had a child out of wedlock with Elizabeth Budd. She was indicted June 1711 in Baltimore Co., Maryland for having a "base born" child. In August 1711 she named Christopher as the father. Note: A child being born out of wedlock (i.e., base born) automatically resulted in a court proceeding to determine punishment, the father, and who and how the child would be cared for. Punishment for standard bastardy charges in eighteenth-century Maryland followed seventeenth-century colonial traditions in assuming until 1715 that lashes would be the punishment (thought the offender could request a fine). ...with the 1715 legislation, the courts had the right to decide if a women who bore an illegitimate child would be assessed the fine or lashes if she refused to name her partner. In 1739 his son Augustine was tried for fathering the child of Sarah Savage.
Although definitive evidence is lacking, there is strong evidence that Christopher's wife was Flora Hawkins, daughter of Augustine Hawkins.
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Christopher Choate I is assumed to have married Susannah (last name unknown) around 1679. He arrived in Maryland as an indentured servant in in 1676 aboard the Cecilius. It is unknown if his wife came with him, but he is assumed to be a single person, because the passenger list did not include her. He apparently did marry because he had a son Christopher Choate II born about 1680 in Maryland. He was apparently a freeman by 1681, for on August 9th of that year an official survey was made for eleven acres, called "Choates His Chance", lying in Ann Arundel County on the south side of the Magothy River. This was a very desirable location since the river not only provided fish and water fowl, but the all-important means of transportation. At about the same time he received 174 pounds of tobacco from the public stock to plant a crop, being entitled to this by Act of Assembly. He died intestate in Ann Arundel County in 1692. The appraisal of his estate suggests that he grew tobacco and corn, raised pigs, and owned a gun for hunting. His two sons, Christopher II and Edward, eventually moved to Baltimore County.
A note on numbering
There is a long line of Christopher Choates and they are numbered, with Christopher Choate I being the immigrant, etc. But there were also Old World Christopher Choates so Christopher Choate I (New World immigrant) is also known as Christopher Choate V since there were four earlier Christopher Choates in the direct line.
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