1717 Maryland

James II departs England

1717- Jacoba Clementina Livers is born to Arnold Livers & Helen Gordon in Prince George's County, Maryland. Arnold Livers was an Englishman by birth and an active and noted partisan of James II. Upon the collapse of that monarch's cause, Arnold had fled to Maryland and became the proprietor of a large estate called "Arnold's Delight" on Owings Creek.
Jacoba was named after James, the Old Pretender to the English throne, and his wife Clementina. With the death of the third Lord Baltimore in 1715, Catholics lost all power in Maryland, and were placing their hopes in the eventual triumph of the Catholic Stuarts in England. (William Elder, Ancestors and Descendants by Sister Mary Louise Donnelly)

It is said of Arnold Livers, in explanation of the singular name given by him to his daughter, that he had registered a vow that his first child, whether a boy or a girl, should, be called James. The good priest to whom the child was presented for baptism found no difficulty in complying with the father’s wishes and so the babe was christened Jacoba Clementina. Livers in his flight from England carried this child with him.

(Arnold Livers is my fifth great grandfather. Jacoba Clementina Livers is my fourth great grandaunt.)

History of Frederick County Maryland, Vol 1 & 2: From the Earliest Settlements ... Down to the Present Time [1910]

1717- Thomas Newton marries Catherine in St. Mary's County, Maryland.

(Thomas Newton is my sixth great grandfather.)

Deaths and Burials in St. Mary's County, Maryland