Individual Details

There is no proof of James' parentage, but some Greer researchers believe he was the James Greer who was born in 1627 to Sir James Greer and Mary Browne of Scotland. This James went on to become a barber-surgeon and was assumed by some researchers to have died unmarried. However, it may be that he disappeared from Scottish records, not because he died, but because he had emigrated to America.

What is known of James is that he came to America as an indentured servant aboard the "Batchelor" arriving in Maryland in November of 1674. If he was the son of Sir James Greer and Mary Browne, then he would have been 47 years old at the time.

James Grear appears in the Maryland Patent Series, Liber 18, page 152, under "A List of Servants Transported by Samuell Gibbons of Bristoll in the Ship Batchellor of Bristoll 1674." The document is dated 2 November 1674 and reads. "Then came the within named Samuel Gibbons and proved Rights unto four Thousand five hundred acres of Land it being due to him for Transporting the ninety persons herein mentioned - into this province to Inhabit before me (torn) Charles Calvert."

Anyone willing to emigrate to the new colony of Maryland was being offered 50 acres of land if they would indenture themselves to the colony for seven years. Anyone who paid the transportation costs of an emigrant was entitled to claim that persons acreage as reimbursement. It appears that Samuell Gibbons of Bristoll had paid for the passage of all 90 persons aboard the Batchelor in exchange for their land.

James eventually settled in Joppa, Baltimore County, Maryland where he married, had one son, and then died shortly thereafter.

Birth	Abt 1627	Capenoch, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Marriage	6 Jun 1687	Baltimore County, Maryland - Anne TAYLOR
Death	Bet 1688 and 1699	Gunpowder, Baltimore, Maryland

Spouse	Anne TAYLOR (1662 - 1716)
Child	John GREER (1688 - 1750)