Henry Pearsall

     Important Notes: Many years ago, when we were new to genealogy research, we were very excited to find the work of Clarence E. Pearsall and his associates. We thought it a gold mine of information and were amazed at the time and effort it must have taken to compile this massive amount of information on the Pershall/Pearshall family. As has many others, we used this source over and over in putting together our history. In more recent times we came across the work of Severmith and Wardwell which they published in the 1941-42 volume of The American Genealogist. This analysis of the Genealogy published by Clarence Pearsall, also was a huge undertaking, over a years worth of research by the two men. In this work, entitled “The Fabulous Pearsalls”, Seversmith and Wardwell give credit to the compilers for the amount of time, effort and research that went into their work, but unfortunately Seversmioth and Wardwell show that there were areas within the work that did not have documentation to substantiate the conclusions, and even worse, in many cases interpretations were made that were either not possible or very highly unlikely to have occurred, and with no documented proof for the theories proposed. This is not the place to describe in detail the article, but it is a must read for anyone seriously looking into the genealogy of this family. The article can be found in its entirety in “The American Genealogist” Volume XVIII, No. 2, pages 78-90 and Volume XVIII No. 3 pages 153-171.
The work of Clarence Pearsall and his associates will from this point be referred to as “The Genealogy”. In The Genealogy, the compilers spend many pages attempting to show that Henry Pearsall was a descendant of Edmond Pershall, the Grocer of London born 1531 & dying in 1629 as a man of nearly 100 years old or possibly even over the century mark. The compilers attempt to show that the family became heavily involved in the tobacco trade and being part of a group of merchants the compilers refer to as Dutch English traders. As such, a generation of siblings immigrate to the Virginia & Maryland colonies and eventually establish themselves in Hempstead on Long Island. The evidence is slim or missing entirely with what evidence they have, pointing to men who Seversmith and Wardwell clearly show were not the same individuals. There are individuals of the name Pursall/Pursell that immigrate to the above mentioned colonies. The first, a Thomas Pursell appears to have been a merchant or tobacco trader, someway involved in the tobacco business from documentation of his estate proceedings. It is possible that this Thomas could be part of the same English family as Edmund, but not likely a descendant of the Edmund who dies in 1629. Thomas, the son of this Edmund is in London in 1629 and there is no evidence that he ever left England, or for that matter any of his children. There is another Thomas Pursell who came over in the 1635 on the ship Constance, but as a servant to a Robert Brasseur, a man he worked with for many years, Thomas is of record as working with Mr. Brassuer in 1653. According to The Genealogy, this Thomas was a son of Thomas and Mary Brent, this can not be the case. Also a Samuel Pursall immigrated, but again as a servant to two unmarried sisters, Margaret and Mary Brent., women that play a significant role in colonial history in both Virginia and Maryland. A Pehall connection is made here, however, as a brother of the sisters, Richard, marries Margaret Peshall, a daughter of Sir John Peshall, Baronet and hi[s wife Ann, daughter of George Sheldon [“The Brent Family” by W. B. Chilton, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 14, page 96]. This couple is not known to have come to the New World. Again, it is possible that Samuel is of this family, but not of Edmund, as the Peshall family and the Brent family lived in the same English locality and obviously from the above marriage had a close relationship.
The locale of the Peshall and Brent families became even more significant with the discovery made by Harry Macy Jr. [Harry Macy Jr.. "Thomas Ireland and Thomas Pearsall: An English Clue From Amsterdam," New York Genelaogical and Biographical Record Volume 121 Number 2 (April 1990): pages 74-75.] . The discovery was a Dutch document which shows Henry Pearsall and Thomas Ireland traveling from New Amsterdam to the Netherlands with a draft from the then commander of New Netherlands, William Keif , for money due them from the West India Company. The document was dated 11 Feb 1644, a date prior to the establishment of Hempstead by the New Englanders. This document is significant in at least three important points: First, it shows that Henry Pearsall was in the New World and employed here well before becoming a part of the Hempstead patent. Second, he had a business relationship with the West India Company, which means he was involved with trade and commerce. Third, the document states that the two men were from “Warckshiet” which Macy has proposed is a Dutch attempt at spelling Warwickshire. This proposal is given credence as Macy pointed out, in the fact that there were men of these names living in Warwickshire in the 17^th century, and even a more significant event is a marriage between a Thomas Ireland and a Frances Pershall, daughter of John Peershall of Eccleshall circa 1710. These facts make it highly likely that Henry Pearshall of Hempstead is indeed a descendant of the Pehall family that is the ancestry of Edmond, the grocer, but again not a descendant of Edmond himself. One more hint that points to this conclusion, Henry names a son George, a name not in the Pearsall family, but is the father of Ann Sheldon, a possible ancestress of Henry.
In summary, it is quite possible that the immigrants to Virginia and Maryland ,as well as Henry Pearsall of Hempstead, may very well be descended from the family that The Genealogy has as the ancestry of Edmond Pershall of London, the grocer, but they would be from a different branch, possibly a brother or brothers of Edmond, but it is clear they are not descendants of Edmond himself. -KLM - 15 February 2013.

Additional Notes: page 84 - Thomas Purcel dead before 2 December 1642 - Mark Pheypo was administer of the estate.
page 87 - states Samuel Pursall brought to Maryland by Margaret and Mary Brent either in 1642 or 1638 - from the The Maryland Historical Magazine Volume V. page 173, 263.
page 85 - The Maryland Historical Magazine Volume VIII page 257 - states that James Lindsey asks for Land in Maryland - past servant of Thomas Pursall aboe
page 87 - from Maryland Archives- Mark Pheypo administrator of Samuel's estate - October 1651
page 88 - states that Thomas Pursall came over in 1635 at age 26 - document from 1640 shows him to be a servant to Robert Brasseur and asking to be discharged from his service. - Same source as above page 235. - Thomas is still with Brassuer in 1653.³

Additional Notes: Margaret Brent (c. 1601 - c. 1671), an English immigrant to the Colony of Maryland, and was the first woman in the English North American colonies to appear before a court of the Common Law. She was a significant founding settler in the early histories of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia. Lord Calvert, Governor of the Maryland Colony, appointed her as the executrix of his estate in 1647, at a time of political turmoil and risk to the future of the settlement. She helped ensure soldiers were paid and given food to keep their loyalty to the colony.
With Anne Hutchinson, Brent ranks among the most prominent women figures in early Colonial American history. Hailed as a feminist by some in modern times in advancing rights of women under the laws, her insistent advocacy of her legal prerogatives as an unmarried gentlewoman of property, while notable in its exceptional energy, was consistent with English law.
Born in Gloucestershire, England, Margaret Brent and her siblings were all adults when they emigrated from England. She was one of six daughters (of a total of thirteen children) of the Lord of Admington and Stoke, Richard Brent, and his wife, Elizabeth Reed (daughter of Edward Reed, Lord of Tusburie and Witten). Although Richard Brent served as the local sheriff, and the family was at least nominally part of the Church of England, their religion and political loyalty became suspect when one daughter proclaimed her return to the Catholic church and emigrated to Belgium. She became a nun (and later abbess), and was joined by other sisters during the drawn out religious conflicts which culminated in the English Civil War. (Ode Brent, a knight in 1066, is direct ancestor to the Brents of Stoke, by their lineage account, while Elizabeth Reed's family claimed descent from William the Conqueror of 1066.)

Margaret, her sister Mary, and her brothers Giles Brent and Fulke Brent sailed together from England and arrived at St. Mary's, Maryland on November 22, 1638, where they hoped to improve their fortunes.[3] In England the father's estate went to the eldest son, and the remainder of the children had to make their own ways. Margaret Brent was about 37 and unmarried.
In the colony, the Brents secured large land grants and corresponding political offices due to their prestigious ancestry and/or political affiliations. Fulke Brent returned to England, but the other three stayed on in Maryland. On October 4, 1639, Margaret Brent became the first Maryland female land owner. She obtained the first recorded land grant in St. Mary's, a 70.5-acre (285,000m2) patent, with which she and her sister Mary established the "Sister's Freehold", and an adjacent 50 acres (200,000m2) titled St. Andrew's. The Brent sisters had land entitlement letters from Maryland's Proprietary Governor, awarding them land portions equal in size to those of arrivals in Maryland in 1634. Their initial entitlement was enlarged to 800 acres (3.2km2) per sister. Later, Giles Brent transferred a 1,000-acre (4km2) land tract on Kent Island, Maryland to Margaret as payment of a debt he owed his sister, although he may have continued to manage it himself.
Margaret Brent also received credit or headrights for the five men and four women servants she had brought with her, and additional headrights for indentured servants she later imported (some of whose indentures she sold to other colonists). The colony's Proprietor issued headrights to encourage the gentry and sea captains to transport workers for labor in the growing colony. However, records concerning her trading or exercise of the headrights are missing, whether because lost or nonexistent, given the colony's instability. Brent became an ally of the governor, Leonard Calvert. Together they became guardians of seven year old Mary Kittamaquund, the daughter of a Piscataway chief, whose deathly ill son had recovered under the ministrations of Jesuit Rev. Andrew White. The colonists promised to educate the young girl in English language and culture. In 1644, Giles Brent married Mary Kittamaquund. Upon her father's death, he asserted his rights to tribal lands, contrary to both tribal custom and Governor Calvert's own claims.
Meanwhile, by the mid-1640s, the English Civil War spilled over to Maryland. Protestant sea captain Richard Ingle raided the colony and burned down structures in early 1645. He took the Acting Governor, Giles Brent, and two Jesuit priests as prisoners back to England. Governor Leonard Calvert fled across the Potomac River to the nearby colony of Virginia seeking help against the raiders. There, he recruited armed men who helped his forces to repel the invaders. However, the colony had been reduced to about 100 residents, and Calvert fell sick and died before paying the mercenaries. The dying man reportedly told Margaret Brent, whom he named his executrix, "Take all, spend all." Brent liquidated his estate to pay the soldiers who had saved the colony, which later caused a controversy with the governor's surviving brother, Lord Baltimore.
Lord Baltimore had always managed his proprietorship from England, where he worked to keep political support for the colony, as well as to prove his loyalty (as a Catholic) to the new government of Protestants. He had appointed his brother as governor and to manage his lands. During the emergency after Calvert's death, the Provincial Court on January 3, 1648 appointed Brent attorney-in-fact for Lord Baltimore, as there was no time to contact him about financial matters, and he had not appointed a successor to Calvert. She collected his rents and paid his debts.
Thus, as Lord Baltimore's representative (as well as Calvert's executrix and a landowner in her own right), on January 21, 1648, Brent attended the provincial assembly, where she requested a voice in the council, as well as two votes in its proceedings (one as an independent landowner and the other as Lord Baltimore's attorney.)[5] Governor Thomas Greene refused her request, as the assembly at the time considered such privileges for women to be reserved for queens. Brent left but said that she "Protested against all proceedings... unless she may be present and have vote as aforesaid."
That same day, Brent called for corn to be brought from Virginia to feed the hungry troops camped at St. Mary's. Some accounts suggest that she had spent all of Leonard Calvert's personal estate by this time, and proceeded to sell Lord Baltimore's cattle to pay the soldiers' wages, although there is disagreement among historians on this matter. English law would not permit the sale of such possessions without a court order or a special act of the legislature. But Calvert's lands and buildings were added into the inventory of his estate. Brent and then Governor William Stone also disagreed upon the act of a sale of a 100-acre (0.4km2) land tract entitled "The Governor's Field".
Brent appeared at the assembly a final time as Lord Baltimore's attorney, on February 9, 1648 in a case against Thomas Cornwallis. She may have been replaced by Thomas Hatton, the new Provincial secretary.
From England, Lord Baltimore wrote to the assembly objecting to the sale of any of his property after the death of his brother. He may have been suspicious of Brent's motives in managing his assets, or not realized that the colony had been in danger of extinction, had the mercenaries not been paid to leave. While the assembly had refused to give Margaret Brent a vote, it defended her stewardship of Lord Baltimore's estate, writing to him on April 21, 1649, that it "was better for the Colony's safety at that time in her hands than in any man's... for the soldiers would never have treated any others with that civility and respect...".
Given Lord Baltimore's (and Governor Stone's) hostility to the Brent family, Giles and his young wife Mary moved to Chopawamsic Island in the Potomac River in 1649, then to Virginia's Northern Neck in 1650. The two sisters Margaret and Mary Brent also bought Virginia land starting in 1647, where they moved by 1650. Margaret Brent built a plantation called "Peace" in what was then Westmoreland County, Virginia.[6] No records exist of her practice as an attorney in Virginia, but records do exist of her sagacious land investments, including in what during the following century became Old Town Alexandria, Virginia[7] and Fredericksburg, Virginia, as well as George Washington's Mt. Vernon.
Margaret Brent held festive annual court leets for her people. Neither she nor her sister Mary ever married; they were among the very few unmarried English women of the time in the Chesapeake colony, when men outnumbered women there by 6:1 (but most were lower class indentured workers). Historian Lois Greene Carr has speculated the two sisters had taken vows of celibacy under Mary Ward's Institute in England.
In 1658 Mary Brent died, leaving her entire estate of 1000 acres (4km2) to her sister. In 1663 Margaret Brent wrote her will. In 1670 she assigned one half of her 2,000 acres (8km2) in Maryland to her nephew, James Clifton. Most of the remainder went to her brother Giles and his children. Her will was admitted into probate on May 19, 1671. She died at "Peace", in the newly created Stafford County, Virginia in 1671.
Exact dates of her birth and death are not known, in part because Brent family estates were burned by British raiders in the American Revolutionary War and War of 1812, and Union troops vandalized the family graveyard during the Civil War.⁴ Henry was born circa 1620 probably at England. Henry married Anne Pankhurst, daughter of Nicholas Pankhurst and Barbara Geere, circa 1644 in the Town of Hempstead, Queens County, Long Island, New York. On 11 February 1644, Henry and Thomas Ireland returned to the Netherlands from New Netherland, in order to be paid money owed them from the West India Company.⁵ Henry made his will on 21 July 1667 at the Town of Hempstead, Queens County, Long Island, New York.

"This being the last will & testament of Henry Pearsall, He being in his right senses, notwithstanding very weake in Body." He leaves to Joseph Williams "a pair of oxen I bought of Mr. Fordhams,"also some land upon ye north side lying in the New Field. He makes wife sole exector, and mentions "four youngest of my children." "I desire at the death of my wife the housing and land should be left to my son Nathaniel." Witnesses: Joseph Sutton, Clerk, Thomas Rushmore, Timothy Halstead.
We, John Williams, Joseph Williams, and Timothy Halstead, do acquit and discharge our late father-in-law (step-father) Henry Pearsall, his heirs and executors, from all demands of houses or lands, and all other goods that formerly were our owne father Michael Williams, deceased.
Dated July 28, 1667. Anne Pearsall is appointed executrix of the will of her late husband Henry Pearsall, deceased. [New York Abstract of Wills, Volume 25: page 7 - Liber 1-2, pages 21-22]

Henry departed this life before 28 July 1667 in the Town of Hempstead, Queens County, Long Island, New York. On this date, his widow, Anne was appointed executrix of his will. His will was probated in March 1668.