Thomas Sprigg
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Thomas Sprigg (abt. 1630 - aft. 1704)

Capt. Thomas Sprigg
Born about in Kettering, Northamptonshire, Englandmap
Ancestors ancestors
Husband of — married 1650 in Virginiamap
Husband of — married before 10 Oct 1667 in Marylandmap [uncertain]
Descendants descendants
Died after after about age 74 in Northampton Plantation, Prince George's County, Province of Marylandmap
Profile last modified | Created 9 Aug 2010
This page has been accessed 14,009 times.

Biography

Flag of England
Thomas Sprigg migrated from England to Maryland, Colonial America.
Flag of Maryland, Colonial America

Captain Thomas Sprigg is believed to have been born around 1630, at Kettering, in Northamptonshire, England.

Burke’s Landed Gentry says this for the lineage of a descendant, James Cresap Sprigg: "Lieut. Thomas Sprigg of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, b. 1630, officer with Royal army, left Great Britain to settle in America before 1650...”

Thomas Sprigg's biographers claim he was "an officer in the Royal Lancers", however Sharon Doliante was unable to confirm this, stating in her book that in 1653, in Virginia, Thomas "signed himself as 'Leift. Sprigge', indicating only that he was an officer in the military. He came to Virginia as a "Cavalier", having left England "immediately after the execution of Charles I in 1649..."

At the time of his removal to America Thomas Sprigg was about 21 years old.

Shortly after his arrival in Virginia he married the widow Catherine (Graves) Roper, who at the time was the sister in law of William Stone, governor of Maryland. She was about ten years his senior. Thomas was a mere lieutenant and given these circumstances it seems likely that the marriage was not a romance so much as a way for a younger son to make good in the new world. An avenue of speculation might be that Sprigg's migration had something to do with his links to man named Obedience Robbins. Robbins was a leader on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, which was a Royalist stronghold, just as Northamptonshire was strongly Parliamentarian. Robbins was a witness, along with one William Andrews, to the first American document which names Thomas Sprigg, essentially a pre-nuptial agreement in which it was stated that Thomas Sprigg was to have no part of the estate of Catherine Roper's daughter Verlinda.

From The Pedigree of Fletcher Garrison Hall, by Garrison Kent Hall, Boston, NEHGS, 1979, p.239:-

". . . nr. Northampton City, VA. 1651; nr. Resurrection Manor, Calver Co., Md.; Northampton Manor, Md. "Thomas Sprigg, the colonist and Lord of Northampton Manor", probably came from Northamptonshire, England, and first settled in Northampton County, Virginia, where he and John Nuthall signed the 'Submission to Parliament' in 1651. He probably came to Maryland with Gov. Stone. He was a party to a suit against John Nevill in the Provincial Court in October 1657. He lived at first near Resurrection Manor in that part of Calvert County that was afterwards called Prince George's County and later at Northampton, which in 1910 was still in possession of the descendant Lord Fairfax of Cameron.
"Sprigg was one of the Justices of the Peace and of the Quorum for Calvert County in 1658-1661-1667-1669-1670-1674, commisioned High Sheriff of Calvert County April, 1664, and held the office until May, 1665. He was Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum in Prince George's County in 1696. Thomas Sprigg's first wife, Catherine, died sometime after August 17, 1661, probably without issue.
"He built Northampton Manor house, encircled by a plantation of 800 acres, prior to 1661. His direct descendants have owned and occupied this manor though seven generations. The full length portrait, in which Thomas Sprigg is in full court costume, is still in the possession of his descendants. No other family other than the Sprigg family and their kindred ever owned the manorial rights of Northampton Manor although the Fairfax family about the end of the Civil War, 1865, became owners of the land."

Thomas was remarried prior to 1668, to Eleanor Nuthall, daughter of John Nuthall and Elizabeth (Tyllye) Nuthall (1628-1657). John Nuthall was a son of John Nuthall, and was granted 300 acres of land in Northampton Co., on 27 Jul 1645. [1]

Thomas Sprigg fought against the Nanticoke Indians sometime before 1673. [2]

Thomas lived most of his life at Resurrection Manor, in today's St Mary's Co. The derelict heritage listed house was demolished in 2002, to make way for a new family home. It was delisted in 2006.

Late in life Thomas moved to a 1000acre tract granted to him by Charles Calvert in 1673 and named it Northampton, in today's Prince Georges Co., Maryland where he built a house. The house there stood until the early 1900s, and in modern terms was located just outside and east of the interstate beltway around Washington, DC. After his death, the property was inherited by his son, Lt. Col. Thomas Sprigg Jr. Thomas Jr. named two of his sons Edward and Osborn, reflecting the family's connections back to relations in Northamptonshire.

Captain Thomas Sprigg died at Northampton, sometime between 9 May 1704, when he wrote his last will, and 29 Dec 1704, when the will was proven.

WILL OF THOMAS SPRIGG, SR.[3], Prince George's County; written 9 May 1704; proven 29 Dec 1704. [4]

To son Thomas, plantation and land of Northampton and Kettering which have not even disposed of; also one-third of patent 500 acres in manor of Colington.
To daughter Martha (Sprigg) Prather and heirs, one-third of residue of 500 acres lying near Jonathan Prather's.
To daughter Elener [not Oliver] (Sprigg) Nutthall, residue of aforesaid patent lying near Jonathan Prather's.
"Personalty" (personal, movable property, as distinguished from real property) to the following:
To Thomas Stockett (widower of an unnamed daughter), grandsons Thomas Stockett, Oliver Stockett, and each of said Thomas Stockett's children,
To daughter Elizabeth (Sprigg) Wade and her children
To daughter Ann (Sprigg) Gittens and her children
To daughter Elener [not Oliver] (Sprigg) Nutthall and her children
To daughter Martha (Sprigg) Prather and her children
Son Thomas to serve as Executor, and in the event of his death, sons-in-law (_?_) Wade, Phillip Gittens and Thomas Prater to assume executorship.

Sources

  1. Colonial Families vol. 2
  2. Virkus, Vol 3, p.683
  3. "Maryland Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999; Handwritten. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.
  4. "The Maryland Calendar of Wills: Wills from 1703-1713." Jane Baldwin Cotton, Compiler (Kohn & Pollock, 1907); Will of Thomas Sprigg, Jr. GoogleBooks (Free) Vol III, p 48
  • U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s
    Place: Virginia; Page Number: 62
    Ancestry Record 7486 #3992357 (accessed 2 December 2023)
    Name: Thomas Sprigg; Arrival Place: Virginia; Primary Immigrant: Sprigg, Thomas; Source Publication Code: 9448; Annotation: In the years from 1925 to 1942, Frederick A. Virkus edited seven volumes with the title, The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, published in Chicago by the Institute of American Genealogy. Each volume has a section in the main body of the work, co; Source Bibliography: VIRKUS, FREDERICK A., editor. Immigrant Ancestors: A List of 2,500 Immigrants to America before 1750. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1964. 75p. Repr. 1986.;
    Household Members (Name):
    Thomas Sprigg.
  • MD Archives 1658-1686, Liber 2-4, No 1, folio 696; VA Historical Magazine.
  • Archives of Maryland, Volume 49, Provincial Court Proceedings, 1665. Page 498-501, Liber FF, [p. 90]; Saturday 14th Octobr 1665 - "All prnt as afore (Except Mr Edward Lloyd & Mr Henry Coursey) Mr Thomas Sprigge aged 35 yeares or thereabouts sworne sayth, That uppon the 15th ffeb. 1664" [this may belong to a different paragraph on this page]
  • Register of Maryland's heraldic families : period from 1634, March 25th to March 25th, 1935, tercentenary of the founding of MD, Ancestry.com, Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.Original data - Parran, Alice Norris,. Register of Maryland's heraldic families : period from 1634, March 25th to March 25th, 1935, tercentenary of the founding of Maryland. Baltimore, Md. Repository: #R1 Note: "The tercentenary edition is sponsored by the Southern Maryland Society Colonial Dames."|||Includes index to v. 1. Record ID Number: MH:S188
  • London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, Ancestry.com, Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.Original data - Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1812. London Metropolitan Archives, London.Images produced by permission of the City of London Corporation Libraries, Archives Repository: #R1 Record ID Number: MH:S80 User ID: 331737E5-6D59-4B9E-9E67-60026AEFB576
  • Sharon J. Doliante, Maryland and Virginia Colonials: Genealogies of Some Colonial Families : Families of Bacon, Beall, Beasley, Cheney, Duckett, Dunbar, Ellyson, Elmore, Graves, Heydon, Howard, Jacob, Morris, Nuthall, Odell, Peerce, Reeder, Ridgley, Prather, Sprigg, Wesson, Williams, and Collateral Kin (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Com, 1991), "Will of Thomas Sprigg Sr.," 945-51.




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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Thomas by comparing test results with other carriers of his Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA. However, there are no known yDNA or mtDNA test-takers in his direct paternal or maternal line. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Thomas:

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Comments: 3

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The first sentence in the Biography seems to want to direct to a photo. It is incomplete and just reads as: | origin =England | destination = Maryland, Colonial America | origin-flag = Flags-8.jpg | destination-flag =Flags_of_Colonial_America.png}
posted by Debra (Adams) Akin
Fixed - missing “curly braces”
posted by Kenneth Shelton
The managers may like to update the text concerning Thomas' first wife to reflect her Wikitree profile Katherine (Graves) Sprigg (abt.1622-1661) Thanks!
posted by Beth (Brown) Golden
edited by Beth (Brown) Golden