The Settlement on Kent Island

In the year of grace, 1631, as I have already written, William Claiborne, who was at that time counted a member of the Virginia Colony, and one of its officers, brought from England seventeen servants which he settled on Kent Island, providing them with, among other things necessary, thirty caws, a large number of hogs, and much poultry.

Six of these servants died shortly after coming into the New World, and Claiborne hired ten freemen from Virginia to take their places. So large was the plantation that thirty or forty men at least were needed during the fur-trading season, which lasts from the beginning of March until the end of June, for it is necessary then to have three or four shallops or pinnaces on the water, each armed by six or seven men. A less number, say four or five, would run the danger of being cut off by the Indians, as there would be no one to guard the boats while the trading was being carried on.

Among these servants was, so John declares, the first white woman to step foot on the land of our province. She was Joan Young, and had been hired to wash the men's clothes. There was also a reader of prayers, Henry Pincke; but he broke his leg within a month after landing, and was not of great service, so it is said, though I am puzzled to know why he could not have read prayers as well after his leg was broken, as before.

At the head of this people, acting as Master Claiborne's lieutenant, was Arthur Ffiges.

One year later the numbers of the Kent Island settlement were increased by five, and among them the first Protestant clergyman in Maryland, the Reverend Richard fames, and his wife, Gertrude.

Now at this time of which I am writing, that is to say, in the year of grace, 1634, the people in Claiborne's settlement numbered not less than fifty-two servants and traders, not including three women and a boy who worked in the kitchen, nor four men who acted as hog keepers.