John Garner, after growing up in the care of William Farrar, had moved into the Northern Neck of Virginia by 1650. When our first Garners arrived, the Colony of Virginia was settled and administered by representatives of the Virginia Company of London. But in 1624 Charles I claimed most of Virginia as a Royal colony. The Northern Neck, the stretch of land between the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers extending toward the Chesapeake from the Blue Ridge Mountains, remained a proprietary of Lord Fairfax until much later. John Garner's quit-rent or outright payment for land would have been to this proprietor or his land agents in Virginia.
When John Garner arrived in Northumberland County, Virginia, it was still a densely forested landscape, cut through by waterways, ranging in importance from the Chesapeake Bay to the brackish streams in the Tidelands. Settlers had not penetrated to higher ground yet, though John Garner himself, and certainly his descendants, played a part in pushing the frontier of the English Colony westward. The settlements consisted of a few plantations, small in size when compared to twentieth century farms in the Midwest or California. The plantations were established along the waterways, the more prosperous having their own wharf with loading facilities and tobacco warehouse. These water routes were the colonists' safest method of transportation. Between plantations, there were no roads cleared and the forest rider faced the strong possibility of being ambushed by Indians. Along the main rivers, up from the Bay, at or near the most westerly English residence, the colonists would build and man a fort, and every male was expected to do his part in protecting the settlement from marauding Indians.
The English settlements expanded through the encouragement of the Crown and the Lord Proprietor. A planter who imported another person into the Colony was entitled to fifty acres. Anyone who came to the Colony on his own was also entitled to fifty acres. And of course, relatively large tracts of land were owned by former shareholders in the Virginia Company and by businessmen in England.
Many of your own ancestors came to Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas as "headrights," i. e., some business man (usually a Virginia tobacco planter, a boat captain, or a London merchant) had brought them into the Colony, paid their transportation and settled them onto land that the business man was entitled to as a result of this enterprise of importing labor for clearing land, planting and curing tobacco. Within a few years of the Garners' arrival, Richard died and left young John Garner in the care of William Farrar, an "ancient planter of Virginia" for whom Farrar's Island was named, and the man who had transported them from England to Virginia. For their first few years in the Colony, all your Virginia ancestors probably worked on the plantations of other people. But as the Colony grew and their terms of indenture ended, more westerly lands were offered for settlement and your people located their own plots on the frontier of that time. Within John Garner's own lifetime, this frontier region was pushed from a line only slightly west of Williamsburg, Virginia to a line about even with present-day Richmond, Virginia...
...Before the marriage, in 1658, John Garner had been named the assignee of Francis Roberts who in 1657 had bought 500 acres in the area that later became Stafford County. The assignment was shared by Joseph Fielding. In 1663 these two men transferred their rights, titles and interest in this same land to John Garner, Jr. who would have been the infant son of John Garner I and to John Bailes, Jr., the soon-to-be step-son of Joseph Fielding. In 1663 John Garner was sworn as Constable for Cherry Point Neck.
The Colony was building a fort on the Yeocomico River in 1667, and the Association of Northumberland, Westmoreland and Stafford Counties ordered that a house be built for the workmen "by John Garner and other assistants whom he shall select."
Around 1672 John and his family moved farther north and west on the Northern Neck to Westmoreland County near the present village of Kinsale. In October, 1672, John and Susanna bought 100 acres on the Yeocomico River from Nicholas Jenkins. John Garner's business associates and friends in Northumberland and Westmoreland Counties included Robert Francis, Joseph Fielding, Thomas Watson, Henry and Elizabeth Moseley and Robert Middleton.
January 15, 1694/95 John Jenkins of Cople Parish sold to John and Vincent Garner 100 acres in Horne Point on Yeocomico River. It may be upon this very tract of land (between Kinsale and Hague) that a descendant of Vincent Garner built "China Hall" in the 1700's, still standing today. Its modern name is "Kirnan."
...At his death, John Garner owned more than 800 acres in one tract of land, a second plantation and more lands adjoining it, a separate parcel of land in Horn Point, at least 4000 pounds of good tobacco in cask, at least half interest in a sloop named "Outcry", a valuable chest, a yoke of oxen, jewelry and other personal property.
Susanna's estate was inventoried March 28, 1716 by James
Carr, James, Thomas and William Garner.
J. H. Garner – 2007
1634 - 1702 (67 years)
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