Thomas William Savage (1621 - 1663)

Born 1621 in England

Descendants

Died 24 Sep 1663 at about age 42 in Accomack, Virginia

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Biography

Thomas was born in 1621.^[1]

His Father

Thomas William Savage's father was Ensign Thomas Savage and was born about 1594, in Cheshire, England, his father, Thomas Arthur Savage, was 26 [1568-1632] and his mother, Sarah Woolhouse, was 28 [1566-1654]. Ensign Thomas Savage married Hannah Ann Tying in 1621. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 1 daughter.

He lived in Accomack Parish, Accomack, Virginia, United States in 1619 and Virginia, Virginia, Orange Free State, South Africa in 1651. In 1619, at the age of 33, his occupation is listed as carpenter.

He died on 24 September 1633, in Savage Town, Accomack, Virginia, British Colonial America, at the age of 39, and was buried in Accomack, Virginia, British Colonial America.

Thomas' grandfather was Thomas Arthur Savage 1568-1632. His wife was Sarah Woolhouse 1566-1654

Hannah Ann Tying (Tynge)

When Hannah Ann Tying was born in 1600, in England, her father, Colonel Edward Tynge, was 23 and her mother, Elizabeth Clark, was 21. She married Ensign Thomas Savage in 1621. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 1 daughter. She died before 17 May 1641, in Northampton, Virginia, British Colonial America, at the age of 41.

LifeStory of Ensign Thomas Savage

My 10th Great Grandfather Thomas Savage (1594-1633) came to Virginia with the first settlers, on the first supply ship, when he was only 13 years of age and he had no other family with him on his journey. He and 103 other settlers (including the well known John Smith) arrived in Jamestown on January 8th 1607 on the ship, named "John and Francis", they were the first settlers to colonize the new world.

The captain of the ship, Capt. Christopher Newport called Thomas his son, but in 1608, in exchange for Namotacke (an Indian), he gave Thomas away to Chief Powhatan, the leader of the Powhatan people and the father of the well known Pocahontas, who is best known for saving the life of Colonist John Smith in 1607.

Smith was being held captive by her tribe, and Pocahontas placed her head upon Smith's head just as her father raised his war club to execute him. The Powhatan’s were a confederacy of 32 Algonquian tribes, totaling about 10,000 people. Thomas remained for some years with the Powhatan people and during his time with them, he learned to understand and speak their native language.

In doing so, he was able to render the English Colony and the Indian tribe much service as an interpreter. What is now know as the Jamestown Colony, was first settled in the year 1607 with a growing total of about 900 settlers subsequently arriving over the next three years.

Powhatan allowed Thomas Savage to return to the Jamestown colonists in 1610, and they did not see each other again for another four years, when Savage once again served as interpreter on behalf of one Thomas Dale. By 1610 disease, starvation and Indian attacks had claimed the lives of all but 150 English settlers. In response, most of the people of the colony tried to abandon Jamestown, and return to England.

However, the very day that they were preparing to set sail and take leave, the new Governor arrived by sea, in a supply ship filled with goods. The Governor put a stop to the voyage and made everybody stay. Remarkably, about 2 years later, The Powhatan Chief’s daughter Pocahontas, was captured and held for ransom by the Jamestown Colonists during hostilities in 1613. During her captivity, she converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca.

Thomas Savage was a witness to the Christian baptism of Pocahontas. When the opportunity arose for Pocahontas to return to her people, she chose to remain with the Colonists. Thomas Savage was also present for the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe. She married the tobacco farmer in April 1614 at the age of 17, in the old church of Jamestown, Virginia.

On a different occasion, while at Opechancanough's town (for the purpose of securing and retrieving a captive named Thomas Graves, who was being held for ransom), some difficulty arose. Savage and three other Englishmen offered to fight thirteen of the Indians at once, in exchange for the man, but the Indians declined the invitation. However, Savage was still successful in rescuing and saving Thomas Graves’ life.

The Powhatan Tribes loved Savage, who they endearingly called “the little white man”, which no doubt aroused jealousy in the Opechancanough people. This, coupled with the unfortunate incidents narrated, is what probably caused Savage to leave Powhatan in 1619, and move to the Eastern Shore, where Debedeavon “The Laughing King” of the Eastern Shore-Esmy Shicans, had given him a large tract of land totaling 9,000 acres, which resides between Cheriton Creek and King's Creek, known as Savage's Neck.

However, it is possible that Savage may have been living among the Indians of the Eastern Shore before the year 1619, for when Captain John Martin visited them in April, 1619, he found Savage well established in their councils. Captain Martin says, that being somewhat cut off from the main necessity had made the natives of the Eastern Shore more industrious than any other Indians in the Bay Area. He also said that 'the trade with the Indians was discovered not long before Sir George Yeardly came in by my Aunchient (Ensign) Thomas Savage and servants, when they saw at one time forty of their great canowes, laden with their commodities, and obtained a sufficient quantity of corn to relieve the Colonists,' who were then in want, owing to the failure of the crops the previous year on the Western Shore.

So we see that at a very early date the settlers along James River had learned the value of the remote peninsula as a source of abundant food supply. When John Pory visited the Eastern Shore in 1621, he found young Savage dwelling happily among the Indians and thoroughly ingratiated in the good-will of the Laughing King, and of his Prime Minister and brother, Kictopeake.

Savage's wife, Our 10th Great Grandmother, Hannah Tyng, came to Virginia in 1621 in the good ship “Sea Flower”, with Captain Hamor. They were wed sometime before 1624. The records show that on December 1, 1627, she was granted fifty acres of land in the Plantation of Accomack, by way of dividend for having defrayed the expense of her own transportation.

This grant is described as a small neck of land abutting northward on the main river (Cheriton Creek), eastward on the creek, called Long Creek, and westward on Curtaile Creek, dividing the same from the land of Clement Dilke. Thomas Savage died in 1633 and left an only son,

Our 9th Great Grandfather Captain John Savage, of 'Savage's Neck,' born 1624. Thomas Savage having been the first settler, this much of his history is not thought to be out of place. It is a remarkable fact that Thomas Savage, is said by many authorities, to be the first consistent, permanent and surviving white settler on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, from the first colonist ship to America. Thus it is believed that the descendants of Thomas Savage, represent the oldest American family in the entire United States of America.

Siblings of Thomas

• Capt John Savage 1624-1678
• Dorothy Savage 1628-

Sources

• https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LRN1-YZB/ensign-thomas-savage-1594-1633#:~:text=When%20Ensign%20Thomas%20Savage%20was%20born%20about%201594%2C,of%20at%20least%201%20son%20and%201%20daughter.
• https://www.savageancestry.com/
• https://www.geni.com/people/Captain-John-Savage/6000000004664177218

1. ↑ A source for this information is needed.