Henry Ward

Henry Ward, Marriner of Baltimore county

In his early years, Henry Ward is difficult to track through the colonial records. Several Ward families resided in Maryland and even in Cecil County during the first decades of European settlement. The name Henry Ward appears in the Middle Atlantic region at least as early as 1637 when one of that name emigrated to Virginia (George Cabell Greer, Early Virginia Immigrants, 1623-1666 [1912; repr. ed., Baltimore, 1989], 343). This, or another Henry Ward of Stepney, London, died in Virginia in 1659 (Peter W. Coldham, The Complete Book of Emigrants 1607-1660 [Baltimore, 1988] [hereinafter cited as Emigrants 1607-1660], 422). On 4 November 1662, a Henry Ward had 550 acres surveyed in Spesutia Hundred, Baltimore County, on the Susquehanna River at the northern-most bounds of Stockets Chance, called Mount Surredoe (Maryland Rent Rolls: Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties, 1700-1707, 1705-1724. A Consolidation of Articles from the Maryland Historical Magazine [1924-1931]; reprint ed., Baltimore, 1976], 20). On 4 July 1665, a Henry Ward claimed a land patent for transporting himself and 20 others to Maryland (MHR, Patents, 8:484).

The first certain record of our Henry Ward is the 24 August 1666 survey of 1400 acres on the south side of the Elk River in Cecil County called Poplar Neck. This tract was owned by William Fisher of Virginia and his wife Elizabeth but “possesst by Henry Ward,” apparently as a tenant (Cecil County Rent Roll, 1658-1707, microfilm at Maryland Historical Society). Six months later, Fisher and his wife sold Poplar Neck to Henry Ward for 21,700 pounds of tobacco (MHR, Land Office, 18:274) and it became Henry’s principal residence for the rest of his life. After he died, Poplar Neck passed to his only son and then continued in the family into the 19th century. The 1666/67 survey describes Henry as “Henry Ward marriner of Baltimore county,” [Cecil County was not created from Baltimore County until 1676.], perhaps significant since a “Henry Ward of London, marriner” is listed in the Mayor’s Court of London as having signed a financial obligation on 3 January 1657 (Coldham, Emigrants 1607-1660, 405). In November 1675, Henry Ward had a patent for land at Reedon Point, near New Castle, Delaware, confirmed by Edmund Andros for the Duke of York, and thereafter his name appears frequently in the Delaware records (Original Land Titles in Delaware Commonly Known as the Duke of York Record, 1646-1679 [Wilmington, n.d.], 163).

Henry Ward was a tobacco planter, a dry goods merchant, and a substantial landowner in both northeast Maryland, where he was a neighbor to Augustine Herrman, and in New Castle, Delaware. On 27 March 1671, Henry Ward was appointed a deputy from Cecil County to the Lower House of Assembly (William Hand Browne, ed., Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1666-1676 [Baltimore, 1894] [hereinafter cited as Assembly], 2:422), a position he held until 1676. In December 1673, when Holland was briefly reasserting its sovereignty over New York and Delaware, Henry Ward joined Captain Thomas Howell of Baltimore County and 40 men in the brutal surprise attack on the Whorekill, a small, mostly Dutch settlement near present-day Lewes, Delaware (John Munroe, Colonial Delaware: A History [Milwood, N.Y., 1978], 70). Howell burned the entire town, except a small barn that had thrice resisted the torch (ibid.). In October of 1675, the Council of Maryland awarded Henry Ward 1800 pounds of tobacco for the loss of his horse at the Whorekill (Proceedings of the Council of Maryland [Baltimore, 1896] [hereinafter cited as Council], 15:50).

It appears that Henry was an unscrupulous character. In May 1676 the AAssemblyof Maryland found him and two of his neighbors “guilty of a Ryot” in forcibly cutting down the timber of his Quaker neighbor, James Frisby (Assembly, 2:480). A month later the Assembly determined that Henry’s claim of a lost horse at Whorekill was a deception. Outraged that one of their own members should so conduct himself, the Assembly fined him 4000 pounds of tobacco. Henry managed to keep the fine collectors from his door for several years and as late as August 1681 he was petitioning the General Assembly for relief (ibid., 7:122). In September 1681 William Penn wrote Augustus Herrman, Henry Ward, and several other neighbors asserting that their lands lay in the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania and that they should not pay taxes to Maryland (Council, 5:285, 375). Maryland, of course, was displeased with what it perceived as encroachment by Penn in his desire to obtain a good harbor for his colony.

It is not certain how Mary Dyre and Henry Ward met but it seems likely that the common link was Mary’s brother William, who was a close friend of Edmund Andros, the Governor of New York and of the former Dutch holdings in Delaware. As Collector of the Customs and a member of the Council of New York, William was concerned with the mercantile affairs of Delaware and probably had cause to visit the small settlements there (see NY Hist. Records, 12:536, 537, 540, 542, etc.). A memo by Henry Ward notes that in 1680 he sent seven hogsheads of tobacco to William Dyre at New York (MHR, Testamentary Papers, Henry Ward, Box 5, Folder 8) and we can safely conclude that Dyre not only served occasionally as Ward’s attorney but also that they were business associates.

By 29 April 1684, Henry Ward was dead, as noted in the filing of his inventory (MHR, Inventories & Accounts, Cecil County, 8:163). His large estate included his properties at Poplar Neck and Reedon Point, a storehouse, dairy barn, a variety of livestock, several books, including Michael Dalton’s The Countrye Justice (London, 1618) and two by Ogilby “concerning East India company,” four servants, nine slaves, one free Negro, tobacco and book debts owed him, and a debt of 30 pounds 5s 5d owed by William Dyre. In total the estate was valued at 631 pounds 13 shillings in money and 52,817 pounds of tobacco in hogsheads. The administration was delayed until 2 November 1686 by a caveat exercised by William Dyre, who was perhaps dissatisfied with his deceased sister’s interest in the disposition of the estate (New Castle Co., Probate, A, 1:77, original missing; this information from Card Catalogue at Delaware State Archives, Dover). The administrators were Anna Margaret Vanderheyden, Henry’s second wife and widow, and her second husband, Mathias Vanderheyden (ibid.).

After Mary’s death, Henry Ward married Anna Margaret Herrman, the oldest daughter of his neighbor, Augustine Herrman of Bohemia Manor. She was baptized as Anna Margaretta Heermaans in New Amsterdam 10 March 1658 (Baptisms and Marriages in the Dutch Church Before the Revolution [New York, 1862-1864], 773), and she died after 27 August 1724, after having married second, between 1684 and 1686, Mathias Vanderheyden (MHR, Maryland Prerogative Court Wills, 1728-30, 19:776). Anna Margaret had by her second marriage four daughters, three of whom are mentioned as sisters in the wills of Henry Ward’s children.

Henry Ward was born in England, probably before 1647, and died in New Castle County, Delaware, about 1683/84.

Mary Dyre, daughter of William, was born, likely before 1650, at Newport, Rhode Island. She died probably in Delaware not long after 26 January 1679, when her husband appointed her his attorney. She married, after 25 July 1670 and probably by 1675, Henry Ward of Cecil County, Maryland, and New Castle, Delaware, as his first wife.

Between 1670 and 1675, when Henry was 23, he first married Mary Dyer, daughter of Captain William Dyer and Mary Barrett. Mary was born ca 1639 in Boston, Massachusetts and died after January 26, 1678/79 when she was 39 years old.

He died in New Castle, Delaware in 1683/84 when he was 36 years old.

The children  are as follows:

• Henry Ward (<1678-1734); only son, born before 1678 (not noted as a minor in his sister’s 1695 will); married Elizabeth Pearce.
• Rebecca Ward (<1678->1695); only daughter, b. before 1678 (not noted as a minor when she made her nuncupative will); d. unmarried shortly after 4 August 1695 “being sick and weak in Body…speaking to her father-in-law, Mr. Mathias Vanderheyden…saying, Father, all that estate of mine which is in your hands I give ten pounds of it to your brother [Johannes Vanderheyden] and all the rest to be equally divided between my brother and [step] sisters…” (Cecil Co., Probate, AA, 1:86).

The source of some of this information is an article from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register v. 145 January 1991, “Mary (Dyre) Ward: Mary (Barrett) Dyre’s Missing Daughter Traced”. The rest of the information is taken from Duncan Veazey’s notes on the Ward and Veazey families of Cecil County, Maryland. Thanks go to Dave Jarvis for finding this article.

Last updated: 5 December 2019.