| Colonel Nicholas Gassaway | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Committee of the Twenty | |
| In office before 1690 – 1691 |
|
| Constituency | Anne Arundel County Maryland |
| Gentleman Justice of the Quorum, later Justice of the (Maryland) Provincial Court | |
| Commissioner of Londontown, & Commissioner of the Peace | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1683 & 1686 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1634 London, England |
| Died | 1691 Anne Arundel, Maryland |
| Spouse(s) | Anne Besson, Hestor Besson |
| Relations | Ancestor of Henry G. Davis |
| Children | Ann Gassaway Watkins (2nd Burgess, 3rd Jones), Captain Nicholas Gassaway, Captain John Gassaway, Jane Gassaway Cotter (2nd Sanders), Lord Sherriff Captain Thomas Gassaway, Margaret Gassaway Larkin, and Hester Gassaway Groce (2nd Warman) |
| Residence | Love’s Neck, Bessondon, Poplar Ridge & Gassaway's Addition Plantations, Anne Arundel, MD |
| Occupation | Plantation owner, provincial military officer, justice and politician |
| Religion | Anglican |
Colonel Nicholas Gassaway (Baptized 11 March 1634, died 1 October 1691) was a colonial military and political leader and justice in early Maryland. He is also notable for having originated the family name Gassaway (also spelled Gasaway, Gasway and Gazaway), as a variant of his father Thomas Gaswaie’s family name. He is the progenitor of the some five and a half thousand Americans who bear the family name in the 2000 census.[1]
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Nicholas Gaswaie was born to a Welsh merchant family belonging to St. Margaret’s Parish Westminster in London England.[2][3] He emigrated to the colony as a professional plantation manager around 1650 and settled south of Londontowne, a southerly district of Annapolis Maryland today.[4] Within a decade he was the owner of a sizable tobacco plantation exporting to his Gaswaie family back in England from his dock at the neck of the South River on Chesapeake Bay.[3] He served as an officer in the Maryland Provincial military rising rapidly to the rank of Major during skirmishes with local Indigenous peoples. [5]He died one of the largest landholders in the Maryland colony.[6]
Nicholas Gassaway was a politician and jurist in addition to his military role in the colony. He was named a Gentleman Justice of the Quorum while still a Major.[7] He was promoted to Colonel in 1672 and was named as a Commissioner of Londontowne in 1683. He became a Commissioner of the Peace in 1686 and was appointed one of the Committee of Twenty who governed the Maryland Colony pending the arrival of a Royal Governor from late 1689 to 1691. [8][5] Additionally, he sat as a Justice of the Provincial Court in his final years.[9]
Nicholas’ son Captain Thomas Gassaway, who provided Gassaway land for the Old South River Club[10] and All Hallows Church, would carry on the family tradition of both military and civilian leadership serving as Lord High Sherriff for Anne Arundel County from 1711 through 1714.[11][5] His son, Captain John Gassaway, in turn served as High Sherriff of Annapolis.[12]
Colonel Nicholas Gassaway was baptized Nicholas Gaswaie at St. Margaret’s Parish Westminster, London, England, 11 March 1634.[13][14] He was the son of Thomas Gaswaie and Ann Collingwood, who were married there 6 January 1631.[15] He emigrated to North America arriving around 1650.[5]
Nicholas Gassaway married the daughter of Captain Thomas Besson, Anne, in 1672. She was 18 and he was 42 at the time.[16] They had 5 children including Ann (1670-1737), Captain Nicholas (1668-1699), Captain John (1674-1697), and Jane (1680-1736). [14] Upon the death of Anne, who died in childbirth in 1680 following a bout with depression after the death of her father, he remarried to Anne’s sister Hester.[16] They had at least 3 children including Captain Thomas (1683-1739), Margaret (1680-1724), and Hester (1676- before 1735).[14] All of those holding rank followed Colonel Nicholas as officers in the Maryland Provincial Forces.
Three of Colonel Nicholas Gassaway’s great grandchildren continued the tradition of colonial military service as officers in the Maryland Line of the Continental Army. They were Lieutenant Henry Gassaway, Lieutenant Nicholas Gassaway and Captain John Gassaway.[17] Great-great grandson Colonel Gassaway Watkins of Morgan’s riflemen[17] also gained distinction in the revolution and served as President of the Maryland chapter of the prestigious Society of the Cincinnati in which the most direct descendant of each of the four is eligible for membership.[18]
One of many notable descendants of Colonel Nicholas Gassaway is Henry Gassaway Davis, a railroad tycoon from West Virginia who served as Senator from that state (1871-83) and ran for Vice President of the United States in 1904.[5]The town of Gassaway, West Virginia is named after the late Senator.[19]
As of the Census of 2000, there were 5599 persons in the United States named Gassaway, Gasaway, Gasway or Gazaway. Of those roughly 79% were identified as white, 16% African-American, 1% Hispanic and less than 1% Asian-American.[1] While slaves routinely adopted the name of the slaveholding family, there is some indication that some African-Americans descended from Gassaway slaves may also be descended from the Colonel genetically.[20]
Colonel Nicholas Gassaway owned large tracts of land alongside Chesapeake Bay south of modern Annapolis, Maryland. His lands abutted those of the Selby family, Called Selby's Marsh, a part of which was rented to family attourney John Gresham II who built what became known as Gresham house. In 1690, Nicholas’ daughter Jane married the pirate William Cotter who came to own part of Selby's Marsh in 1693 including the rental parcel, but the it was not in the hands of any of Nicholas’ family at the time of his late 1691 death.[21] Their plantation, renamed "Cotter's Desire", passed to their nephew Captain John's three sons and was later sold along with Gresham house to the family of Commodore Isaac Mayo, for whom much of the area is today named.[12] Colonel Nicholas left to his son Captain Nicholas the Love's Neck plantation and his residence there in 1691.[22] Gresham house was owned by Greshams on rented land until sometime after 1723.[21] The wife of Mayo's grandson Thomas Gaither Jr. relocated the gravestone of Captain Nicholas Gassaway (d.1699), found at Gresham house, to St. Anne's sometime before the house passed out of the Mayo family in 1915.[22][21] In the 1960s, it was discovered that a footstep at Gresham was in fact the downturned grave marker of Colonel Nicholas Gassaway and it too was relocated to St. Anne’s Church in Annapolis.[21] How Colonel Nicholas’ and his son's gravestones came to be at Gresham house and where their remains actually lie is a mystery.