Bill
and Nancy Smith Family
Travels and Holidays
Colonial Maryland Plantation, August 2001
This web site will both chronicle (very briefly) our recent visit toMaryland and provide some useful background material (via hyperlinks to additional information) for better understanding of the ancestoral heritage of the Kinnick line (Bill's mother's father's line) in colonial times.
Ancestoral implications
This
is a recreation of one of the original ships, the Dove, to bring the
first colonists to Maryland
in 1634. My Richard Brightwell (later to become Captain of the Horse Rangers
of Prince George's County and grandfather of William Kinnick who served in
the Revolutionary War), entered America in 1663 as an indentured servant on
a ship very much like this one.
These
ships could both cross the Atlanticand sail up many of the rivers off the
Chesapeake Bay and
load up on hogsheads of tobacco as well as leave off settlers and manufactured
goods from England.
Records say that Richard Brightwell was brought to Maryland by Captain Thomas Trueman.
After
serving his time as an indentured servant, he earned
his freedom, and acquired land, married,
and had five children who reached adulthood. He also worked for the state
and county government,
as early as 1674, as a Ranger. As settlers moved inland, the local Indians
were less friendly
than they had been in the St. Mary's area. Rangers, both on foot and on horseback,
"ranged" out
along the frontier to report Indian activity and assist settlers they met
along the way.
When Prince George's County was created in 1696, Captain Richard Brightwell
was appointed
one of two Captain of the Horse Rangers, for the county, patrolling the western
and
northern frontiers, from the Potomac River on the west to the Patuxent River
on the east.
Although
Richard Brightwell patented several parcels of land, he died just a few years
later,
leaving five young children, three sons and two daughters, under the oversight
of his friends,
William Watson and Thomas Greenfield, then Sheriff of Prince George's County,
a common practice.
Richard
Brightwell married, Katherine, one of five sisters. Katherine, along with
her mother,
Elizabeth, and sisters, lived at Poplar Hill, a plantation owned by one of
the sisters, Mary,
by way of her late husband, John Boague, who had patented the land in 1666.
Richard moved there and he and Katherine began their family at Poplar
Hill.
Their family
included Richard, Peter and John Brightwell. They also had two daughters,
one whose name we do not know, and Elizabeth, who became the mother
of William Kinnick. William's father, Jasper, died in 1733, when William was
14 years old.
In the Prince George's Orphans Court, William chose his uncle, John Brightwell,
as his guardian.
It appears
that shortly after William reached the age of majority, he and his brother,
also named Jasper, served in the War of Jenkin's Ear (1741-3).
On their
return to Maryland, they spent the rest of their years in Charles County,
about five to ten miles south and west of Poplar Hill, in the Bryantown area.
Bill