Notes for Mrs. Elizabeth (Garnett)
Children:
1. Sussan Susannah Garnett
2. John Garnett
3. Thomas Garnett
79Note: GARNETT, Thomas [1585-?] Thomas GARNETT, at the young age of 25, made his way from England to the New World. So, thanks to his daring voyage to a new life, the name of GARNETT appears at a very early date in the records of Virginia. Some indications are that he may have come to America as an indentured servant---as did many others during the early years of the colony. We are le ft to ponder the reasons he may have had for leaving his family back in England and venturing to new and uncharted territory. Perhaps it was for some unknown family reasons...the spirit of adventure...or to seek his fortunes on a new shore. In a "Muster of Inhabitants" taken in 1624-25, Thomas GARNETT was living at Elizabeth City, aged 40, having come to Virginia in 1610 in the goo d ship "Swan". Living with him were his wife, Elizabeth, aged 26, who came in the "Neptune" in 1618, and their young daughter, Susan aged three. Thomas GARNETT was therefore born in about 1584-5 and might have been the Thomas G ARNETT, son of Robert GARNETT who was baptized in the parish church at Kirby Lonsdale, Lancashire, on December 14, 1585 and therefore related to Thomas GA RNETT, son of Anthony and Susan GARNETT who in 1565 rebuilt and lived in the thirteenth century house at Kendal in Westmorland known as the Castle Dairy. [Although this connection has not been satisfactorily proven, it was suggested in the 1930s by the famous English writer and family historian, David Garnett]. We are left to wonder too why it was that Thomas preceded his wife to America by some eight years---were they previously known to each other or eve n married or betrothed back in England [she would have been 18 years old when Thomas embarked for America]? Did Elizabeth perhaps come to America with he r own family...or was it a marriage of convenience after she arrived? The date for Thomas GARNETT's arrival in Virginia is at a turning point in the history of the English colony at Jamestown. In 1609, Captain John Smith had returned to England and by 1610 the settlers had become discouraged. They planned to embark for England, but returned to Jamestown when they heard of the arrival of Lord Delaware with new colonists and fresh supplies. Among the arriving colonists in 1610 must have been our Thomas GARNETT. He states that hi s wife Elizabeth arrived in the "Neptune" in 1618. This date serves to identify Elizabeth GARNETT as being among the very first women to arrive in the colony. Previously the settlers had almost all been men. In 1619 one boat load of young women arrived to become wives of the lonely settlers. Each settle r gave the London Company 120 pounds of tobacco in payment for his wife's pas sage. Elizabeth GARNETT was one of the fortunate colonists [and one of the few women] who escaped the Indian massacre of 1622. Her arrival in 1618 predates that of most of the other young women in the Jamestown settlement by a t least a year. It seems that Thomas GARNETT was a very colorful and distinctive personality. The following entry from the Journal of the House of Burgesses of Virginia dated Tuesday, August 3, 1619, reveals that he was most certainly a man of great spirit and boldness---and quite possibly also a "troublemaker" and rogue. "...Captain William Powell presented to the assembly a petition to have justice against a lewd and treacherous servant of his, who by false accusation given up in writing to the governor sought not only to get him deposed from his government of James City, and utterly (according to the proclamation) to be degraded from the place and title of a Captaine, but to take his life from him also. And so out of the said Petition sprang the order following: Captain William Powell presented a petition to the General Assembly against one Thomas Garnett a servant of his not only for extreme neglect of his business, to the great loss & prejudice o