| Thomas Hanks resided in the Southern Colonies in North America before 1776. Join: US Southern Colonies Project Discuss: southern_colonies |
Thomas was born in England. He most likely died during Bacon’s Rebellion (8 April 1674), near Farnham, Virginia.[citation needed]
He and his wife Elizabeth had at least three sons, William, George and Robert. All three sons settled in Richmond County, Virginia.[citation needed]
Thomas Hanks (Hank, Hancks, Hankes, Hanckes) was probably born between the years 1620-30 in or near the village of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England. This is based on the fact that the Hanks Family in general, came from Malmesbury and there is a taxpayer named Thomas Hanks in Malmesbury in 1642, who is never in the tax rolls again.[citation needed] As he was a tax payer in 1642, his birth most surely would have been before 1625. However, there is no real proof of when or where in England he was born.
Almost all that is known of Thomas in America has been gleaned from Virginia land records, and to understand the significance of those records, a basic knowledge of headrights and indentured servitude is important: [could the following be moved to a freespace page? then it could be linked to from multiple profiles.]
Most Hanks historians agree that Thomas had arrived in Virginia by 1644 and was among the estimated 75% or more of Virginia's settlers in the seventeenth century who came as indentured servants. There was widespread unemployment and civil war in England at that time, and young, poor, but often skilled workers saw America as the Land of Opportunity. Thomas was very likely among that class who was impressed by recruiters with promises of land in Virginia and other benefits for several years of servitude. However, at least one researcher speculates that he was a soldier in Lord Cromwell's army, was taken prisoner and transported to Virginia.[citation needed]
Whatever the case, Thomas was one of 27 headrights belonging to Thomas Fowke, a merchant of Westmoreland County, on a patent dated 10 June 1654.[citation needed] That, however, doesn't prove in any way when he arrived in the colony or that he was indentured to Fowke. In fact, no record of his indenture has been found, and it is evident he had been in Virginia for a number of years before Fowke claimed to have transported him. The proof is that the previous year, on 16 February 1653, Thomas claimed two headrights of his own in Gloucester County for transporting Joane Litefoot and John Range.[citation needed] Whether these were servants whose labor and headrights he had acquired together, or whether he bought the headrights separately, is not known.
Later that year, on 27 September 1653, also in Gloucester County, Thomas Hanks was a witness to the will of Robert Mascall, and by that will inherited 'one young sow, marked on both ears with the Swallow forke.'[citation needed] The gift of the young sow was probably something more than a neighborly courtesy, as young swine were then highly desirable.
Gloucester County was a new county formed in 1651 from York County. One side of Thomas' 100 acres was bounded by a stream called, in the patent, 'Hanckes Branch' which would appear to indicate that he had already been for some time a resident of the locality. Hanckes' Branch seems from the description in the patent to have flowed from the northwest into a swamp along the "Southeast side" of the Mattopony River. This river flows southeasterly, but curves southwesterly at one point. This swamp was to the left of where the river curves. This would have been the area just above the present day West Point, where the Mattopony and Pawmunkey rivers join to form the York River. Thomas' land extended northeast towards the Rappahannock River, where his holdings eventually reached.
Another important transaction was recorded on 10 February 1654. There lived in what was then Lancaster County, but on the South side of the Rappahannock, Abraham Moone, whose land holdings amounted to 10,500 acres. The greater part of this land had been bought in 1651 and 1653, but Moone was still buying land in 1654. Apparently, he was elderly and in poor health, for he leased for three years to Thomas Hanks "The plantation whereon I now live," consisting of 300 acres with his house, four servants and one mare, reserving for himself and wife, one servant and a room in the house. As one of the servants had nearly served his time, Moone agreed to furnish another servant when the time of that one had expired. For this he acknowledged receipt of 16,000 pounds of tobacco in casks - a sizable transaction for the day.[citation needed]
Abraham Moone did not live long after the lease was made. Early in 1655 his will was presented for probate, and was recorded February 20th, a year and ten days after making the lease.[citation needed]
There was an enormous demand in England for timber to build ships at that time, and other by-products such as tar, turpentine and resinous materials were also needed. By the wording of the lease, it appears that Thomas leased the land for its good stand of timber:
Ten years later [1665], Thomas began to expand his land holdings.
His real estate was, from the legal descriptions, mostly of timberland. Over time he acquired enough acreage to extend his boundary line northeasterly to the Rappahannock River, where he possibly had a boat landing of his own. Thomas became a relatively large landowner, amassing various tracts of land totaling in excess of 2400 acres of timberland in Gloucester and New Kent counties. He leased a further 800 acres from Abraham Moone on Moraticon Creek in the Northern Neck area. How much of this land was held at any one particular time is uncertain. During this period of time, there was a great demand for labor to clear the forests and till the land. Thomas Hanks seems to have sponsored a number of indentured servants for that purpose.
It is thought that Thomas probably lost all of his land in Bacon's Rebellion due to confiscation. Although Bacon and his men were called rebels, there probably was some justification for their actions. They did not originally rebel against Berkley who until then was not a tyrant, but rather to his lack of protecting the planters, their families and farms against an Indian uprising that occurred in 1675 along this northern frontier. Bacon then, without Berkley's consent, called for volunteers to join with him and they defeated the Indians. Then Berkley, vain of his authority, viciously attacked Bacon and his men, and was defeated. Bacon died near the home of Thomas Hanks, 1 October 1676 and his supporters dissolved their unity. Venting a venomous revenge, Berkley then confiscated the lands and farms of Bacon's supporters and passed them to his own, banishing their families. Berkley was recalled by the King and soon died.[citation needed]
Thomas Hanks resided in the very area that was overrun by the Indians and fought over by the Berkley Troops. Within two weeks after the Indian Massacres started, sixty plantations had been burned and the families ravaged and killed. Likely the house and farmstead was burned by the Indians. If his lands were confiscated by Berkley, there would be no record of the rascality. Or if he died a natural death and there were probate records, the actions of the War Between the States and courthouse fires eliminated them. At least there are no further records.
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Categories: US President Direct Ancestor | Virginia Colonists
It looks like there are a lot of great original documents in that NC Digital Collection you found for later generations of the Hanks family, but it looks like the reference to that John Hanks at the end of it is just an unsourced family tree. Do you think I am misreading it?
I've proposed several merges. As we merge, we need to be careful not to bring in unsourced data, not to make a mess of the existing biographies, some of which have been written with some care already.