Person:Augustine Herman (1)

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Augustine Herman, First Lord of Bohemia Manor (Czech: Augustin Heřman, c. 1621 – September 1686) was a Bohemian explorer, merchant and cartographer who lived in New Amsterdam and Cecil County, Maryland. In the employment of Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, he produced a remarkably accurate map of the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay regions of North America, in exchange for which he was permitted to establish an enormous plantation that he named Bohemia Manor in what is now southeastern Cecil County, Maryland.<ref></ref>

Land rights to the area now known as St. Augustine, Maryland were granted to Herman by Lord Baltimore prior to 1686 but the Herman family was never able to lay proper claim to the title.<ref></ref>

Chroniclers have spelled the surname variously: Herman, Herrman, Harman, Harmans, Heerman, Hermans, Heermans, etc. Augustine Herman himself usually wrote Herman, which is now the accepted style. He frequently added "Bohemiensis" ("the Bohemian", "the Czech"), as a suffix.

HERRMAN, Augustine Came to America as agent for firm of Peter Gabry & Sons, Amsterdam, in 1633. He was largest and most propserous merchant of New Amsterdam in 1650; he had a warehouse on the Strand (Pearl Street) and dealt in furs, tobacco, wines, and slaves; he was also a banker and lawyer. For making a survey of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia he was rewarded by Lord Baltimore by a grant of from 24,000 to 40,000 acres in Maryland, where he established a manor.