Maj. Thomas Cary, I

Thomas Cary was employed as a teenager in the construction of the fort at Port Comfort. He was third in command of Warwick Militia at Governor Berkely's array for defense against the Indians in 1676. He was Captain, Major, and Justice of the Peace for Warwick.

from: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/i/n/Art-Wilson-Finch/W...

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LHQZ-4T5

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/189740783/thomas-cary

https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/major-thomas-cary-24-2jg...

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cary-293

Biography
Profile written by Allan Harl Thomas

Chapter Four of 'The Virginia Carys' by Fairfax Harrison reads in part:

"Windmill Point and Peartree Hall"

The first home of the Warwick Carys in Viginia was the high bluff which divides Warwick River and Potash Creek at their confluence, facing Mulberry Island (or, as it is locally called, 'Mulbri' land'). Here in 1643, on a plantation known as Windmill Point a Bristol merchantman, Captain Thomas Taylor, found a snug harbor, safe from the privateers of the Parliament, and here he was succeeded by his son-in-law Col Miles Cary; here in turn succeeded the eldest son of our immigrant. This Major Thomas Cary, 'the merchant is, on the surviving records, a somewhat shadowy person after his earliest youth, but he became the fertile progenitor of more of his race than any of his brothers and is still numerously represented. From him descended during the 18th century the neighboring households at Windmill Point and Peartree Hall, with the branches of the latter which were maintained for several generations in Chesterfield, in Southampton and at Elmwood on Back River in Elizabeth City, whose descendants have since spread far and wide.

1. THE WINDMILL POINT PROPERTY:

The first settlements on Warwick (then known as Blunt's Point) River, below Martins Hundred, were made after the Indian massacre of 1622. From the patents it appears that John Baynham (spelled also Bainham and Burnham) had an 'ancient patent' dated Dec 1, 1624, for 300 acres.

'Adjoining the lands of Captain Samuel Matthews and William Claiborne, gentlemen.
This was Windmill Point and there John Baynham was living in 1625. A Richard Baynham 'of London, goldsmith,' was a shareholder in the London Company in 1623 and one of the Warwick faction, Brown, Genesis, ii, 904, 982, and an Alexander Baynham was burgess for Westmoreland in 1654.) This John Baynham's daughter, Mary, married Richard Tisdale, who succeeded to the property, and from him Captain Thomas Taylor purchased it, taking out on Oct 23, 1643, two patents, one calling for 350 acres known as Magpie Swamp.

In the first of these patents Windmill Point is described as butting upon Warwick River, founded on the S side with Potash Quarter Creek and on the N side with Samuell Stephens his land'. The Stephens place was "boltrope," which passed through the hands of the governors Harvey and Berkely was afterwards long the home of the Coles and eventually the property of Judge Richard Cary.

In his will the immigrant Miles Cary describes Windmill Point as:

'The tract of land which I now reside upon,'
refers to Thomas Taylor's patent and says that a resurvey shows it to include 688 acres, exclusive of the Magpy Swamp.

We trace the title through eight Carys to 1837, when the senior line became extinct and Windmill Point passed to the Lucas descendants of the youngest daughter of Captain Thomas Cary, one of whom Mr. G. D. Eggleston found in possession in 1851.

In 1919 the site of the original house is marked by a grassy cavity. A modern house stands nearby, the residence of J.B. Nettles, who is now the owner of the small surrounding farm. the property is sometimes referred to as 'Cary's Quarter.' This Windmill Point must be distinguished from Sir George Yeardley's Windmill Point (originally Tobacco Point) on the south side of James River in Prince George, where, it is supposed, the first windmill in the United States was erected."

Thomas /Cary
Notes on Thomas Cary married Ann Milner

Frank Willing Leach misidentifies him in his " Pleasants Family" published Philadelphia, PN by The Historical Publication Society, 1939. Leach there incorrectly states he was of Virginia and Philadelphia, and a son of Robert Cary of Nansemond County, Va. 8p 24.

Major Thomas Cary inherited both Magpie Swamps and Windmill Points from his father according to Fairfax Harrison. and Pecquet du Bellet says that Thomas Cary resided Magpie Swamps. While Harrison, whose work is more extensive on the line, says he resided Windmill Points. They are within a mile of each other. See map of Virginia Carys of the region.

Harrison's entry in "The Virginia Carys" reads that Major Thomas Cary " was employed 1666, before he was of age (as appears by his father's will), in the construction of the fort at Old Point Comfort. (MS. notes by Conway Robinson from General Court Order Book, 1666, in W M Cary Notes. See also Va Mag., xvii, 246.) Captain, Major and JP for Warwick. He ranked third in the Warwick Militia at Berkeley's array for defense against the Indians in 1676, prior to Bacon's rebellion. He inherited Windmill Point and Magpie Swamp under his father's will, and perhaps carried on the immigrant's mercantile business in Warwick, in the tradition of which we find his son and grandson.

By reason of the facts that no Virginia evidence has appeared for any activity, after 1676, by the immigrant's oldest son, and that his sons affiliated with the Quakers, it was at one time conjectured by the genealogists that Major Thomas Cary2 of Warwick might be identified with Colonel Thomas Cary, the North Carolina 'rebel' of 1711 (Spotswood Papers, 81) Apart from the stubborn fact of the Warwick will of 1708, the W M Cary Notes prove beyond peradventure that Colonel Thomas Cary of North Carolina was a son of Walter Cary of Chepping Wycombe c/o Bucks, and a stepson of John Archdale, the Quaker proprietary of North Carolina.

http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=13232476&pid...
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/189740783/thomas-cary
http://www.cynthiaswope.com/withinthevines/CaryFamily/GenTwoThomas/...
https://gw.geneanet.org/tdowling?lang=en&p=thomas&n=cary&oc=3
Tombstone records; Harrison, The Virginia Carys; du Bellet, Some Prominent Virginia Families
http://www.cynthiaswope.com/withinthevines/TaylorFamily/Thomas.GenO...
WikiTree profile Cary-293 created through the import of 2010-09-14.ged on Jul 28, 2011, by Bob Carson. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Bob and others.
Source: S-2050775427 Title: Ancestry Family Trees