The First Harness' in America
The first Harness' in America arrived about 1649 (according to undocumented information)William Henry Harness, Sr. and his wife, Susan(Ball), along with their two children, William and Isaac, were reportedly the first Harness' to arrive in America, according to information contained in A Glimpse of the Past , a book on the Harness family in America, compiled and published by Harold Duncan Harness in 1985. According to the book William Harness, Sr. and his family arrived in America sometime after 1649, coming from London, England where the Royal Crown had reportedly granted William, Sr. 400 acres of land on the west side of what is now the Chesapeake Bay, and on the north side of the South river in what is now the Annapolis, Maryland area. ( Harold Duncan Harness cites the Maryland Hall of Records as the source for this information). The William Harness property that was developed on the granted land may have been part of the so-called American Plantations. They were the lands claimed along the Atlantic coast by England, and extended to the west as far as they (the British) could imagine. Regions were settled in "proprieties" granted by England to individuals, generally in return for various favors to the Crown, and slowly developed the defined (and disputed) boundaries of the original American colonies. There may have been two Harness plantations in the Annapolis area. One appears to now be a park near a creek that still bears the name "Harness." There are also still two roads in the Annapolis area that bear the name "Harness." William Henry Harness reportedly died in 1678 in Ann Arundell County, MD. (Annapolis area).
|
||
