Thomas Harrell, the Immigrant

Thomas Harrell, the Immigrant is not a Harwell or Hopewell. Do not merge into those families.

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Harrell-160

1 THOMAS HARRELL b. 1609; Kent to Virginia 1635; d. ~1679 Departed Gravesend, Kent, on the Globe of London 7 Aug 1635 under Master Jeremy Blackman, an archetypal profiteer who had been accused a year earlier of torturing a ship’s boy.

According to Robert Brenner in Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict,and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550-1653, “Jeremy Blackman was a leading colonial sea captain,active in the passenger transportation business, as well as in a wide variety of commercial ventures. He was a substantial trader in Virginian tobacco, importing, for example, some twelve thousand pounds in 1634... By the end of the 1630’s, Blackman was among the first to begin transporting horses from the colony to the West Indies.” (2003, p 146-7)

All things considered, August may have been the safest month for colonists to embark for Virginia, because summer in Virginia was the Season of Death for unadapted Europeans. Captain Blackman’s schedule luckily avoided the Great Hurricane of 1635, which hit Jamestown on 24 Augbefore memorably blasting Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. If the Globe crossed the Atlantic with average speed, she sailed up the James River during the third week of October, when foliage spared by the hurricane would have been brightening the landscape with fall color.

Robert Bennett Esq, a cousin of Virginia’s governor Richard Bennett, probably traded a large pile of tobacco for Blackman’s passengers Thomas Harrwood, 26, and Thomas Needham, 13. Labor was in short supply, and Bennett had land to clear and plant on Bennett Creek. A few months earlier, on 26 Jun 1635, he had patented 700 acres “about a mile and a half up a Creeke near the Mouth of Nansemond river, beginning at a pine marked with the letters of his name (viz) RB.” On 18 Feb 1638/9 (see Research Concepts #4 above re dates) he annexed 200 acres there, claiming the headrights of John Hodges, Sylvester Baker, Thomas Harwood, and Thomas Needham

"England, Essex Parish Registers, 1538-1997," , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLGB-WZYB : 11 March 2018), Thomas Harrell, 18 Sep 1636; citing Christening, , Essex Record Office, England; FHL microfilm 857,057.

Name Thomas Harrell
Sex Male
Father's Name Thomas Harrell
Mother's Name Susan
Event Type Christening
Event Date 18 Sep 1636
Thomas Harrell's Parents and Siblings

Thomas Harrell. Father. M

Susan. Mother. F

References

1. WikiTree contributors, "Thomas Harrell (abt.1635-)," WikiTree: The Free Family Tree, (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Harrell-160 : accessed 08 April 2024). cites
2. Great Migration Ships http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/tova_globe1635.shtml