The Time In Which They Came

I firmly believe that we learn a great deal by paying attention to and helping others with their genealogy. While trying to find some Dehortys and Sillivants for my genie and blogging buddy Mary at Ancestor Tracking I gained some knowledge that may affirm a privately held hypothesis.


Although some excellent researchers indicate that the Western Chesapeake shore was the stomping grounds of Catholics and that Accomac VA was mainly Protestant and English, since I believe my Carrow line was from Ireland I keep some opinions to myself.


The first Carrow I can definitely point to is in Virginia by 1643 when land is claimed for his transportation.That very likely means he came 2 or more years earlier in the throes of the British Civil War. A deceased researcher,named Sheehan, felt that John Carrow(Caroon/Carron) was of the line of Bryan Carragh a chieftain with ties to both O'Brien and Mac Donald clans near Portglenone Antrim Ireland, which was called "Bryan Carragh's Country".He stated that he fled Ireland under penalty of death for his part in the Civil War and that he went first to Bermuda, possibly under his own sail.


I cannot substantiate that and think it more likely that John takes ship in the usual way and we find him and at least two Thomas Carrows in very early Virginia. A Thomas Carrow (Carew) goes into the Carolinas via Isle of Wight area and the Blackwater River again very probably before he is found in Headright records in 1664.We know now that at least one North Carolina Carrow matches at least one Delaware Carrow in their male Y DNA exactly. Paper records indicate both lines firmly entrenched in their respective areas by the 1680s.

While pulling Dehortys and Sillivants out of their hiding places in first Accomac,Virginia and then Dorchester and Queen Anne MD I found some parallels and ties to my men. Dermon Sellivant and Mary Carrel are fined for "breaking the Sabbath" 22 May 1663 and Thomas Carrel and Dennis Sillivant are mentioned together also in Court records.

I later find Sillivants in the same places that were thought to be Catholic on the Wye River.Henry Carrow lives there both before and after his marriage to Mary Harris Ringgold. His brother John Carrow we believe is married to Elizabeth Hinds daughter of Thomas Hinds/Hines "Merchant of Drogheda Ireland" of Spread Eagle on the Chester River near the Wye. Mary Hinds leaves property to Elizabeth Carro and Rebecca Dear in 1739 and very specifically calls them her daughters.

A John Sullivaint and wife Sarah are affiliated with St.Joseph's Mission,Cordova and John is buried from this Mission at "Seth's graveyard" 15 March 1768.Where is Seth's graveyard?
When I did a little research I find this at "Catholics in Colonial Delmarva" on the St. Dennis church website " by 1662 the Wye River Basin had become a safe haven for the largest..Catholic populations on the eastern shore at that time" and " in Dorchester County, Raymond Staplefort a Catholic became High Sheriff in 1669" and " Jacobus Seth who made his home at 'Mount Mill' a Mass station where Jesuits visited" on Back Wye.

Although Thomas Hines himself belonged to the Church of Ireland, and neither Henry Carrow nor John Carrow have had any Catholic records surface, many of their life choices lend itself to affirming at least to me that the time of their coming points directly to religious strife.

A fine researcher has told me that the affiliation with Thomas Hinds indicates to him that the Carrow family also could have served as merchants. The only land owners for sure are John Carrow who inherits "Tackett's Lott' in Dorchester in 1734, Henry Carrow on the Wye River in 1750 and Timothy Carrow by 1692 in Duck Creek DE yet they are affluent enough.

The time in which they came..may have cured them of large land ownership as the family of Bryan Carragh in North Ireland lost their "country" or territory c. 1640 and began (so I have been told) to affilate themselves with the maternal grandmother's line and carry that name Carew or Carron to the New World.

Shortly before my Dad Bill Carrow died in 1998 we spoke of his family , one of our few conversations about them.He spent some months there in Londonderry during WWII and did some research."They were from the North of Ireland" he said "not England". I asked him if that meant they were protestants and he said "I don't know that". He told me that it was exactly like the book "Chesapeake" and "they were all up and down the Shore".

The time in which they came.