Person:Robert Rockwell (3)

In 1637, Robert Rockhold/Rockwell was living on a 250 acre plantation in Nansemond County, Virginia with his wife Sarah ‎(or Hanah)‎, daughter Mary, son Thomas, and servant Mary Hayes. This puritan colony was populated by immigrants from The Netherlands who were of english origin.

In 1649 he moved to Anne Arundel County, Maryland and settled on a large plantation called Towne Neck, now Greenbury Point. Robert was one of seven original settlers of Anne Arundel County. In 1651, Robert Rockhould, gunsmith and, John Scotcher, cooper, were granted 400 acres in Calvert County, Maryland. This tract was located "on top of the cliffs on the west side of Chesapeake Bay." Robert, Sarah, and their sons Robert, Jr., John and Thomas settled on this plantation.

Robert Rockhould was seated upon 250 acres of land in Nansemond County,Virginia, before the 3rd of November, 1647. He came to Maryland about 1649. ‎(Nugent, Cavaliers & Pioneer, folios 134,203,268)‎

He was a pioneer and the armorer for the Trained Band, which protected the young settlement at Providence and was among the dissenters who came up from Lower Norfolk, Virginia.

On August 26, 1651, Robert Rockhould and John Scotcher were granted 400 acres of land in Calvert County, Maryland, on top of the Cliffs, the former having transported himself, his wife Sarah, and his two sons, Robert and Thomas, into the province to inhabit. This land was laid out for Robert Rockhould, gunsmith, and John Scotcher, cooper. They are also named as being of Ann Arundel County October 23, 1651. ‎(Patents 4, f. 94)‎ ‎(Patents 5, f. 53)‎

1.   Library of Virginia. Virginia Land Patent. (http://lva1.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b-clas30&local_base=CLAS30: Library of Virginia).

   1637,1638,1645,1647,1650

2.   Maryland Historical Society. Maryland Historical Magazine. (Baltimore [Maryland]: Maryland Historical Society)
   Vol. 32, No. 4, December, 1937.
3.   M. Dorsey, J. Dorsey, and N. Nimmo. The Dorsey Family.
4.   DNA haplotype analysis shows that Robert Rockwell/Rockhold/Rockhould of VA/MD is unrelated to the colonial Connecticut Rockwell lines.
   
   In his discussion, Ken Rockwell suggests that Robert Rockhold/Rockwell b. abt 1605 was named Rockhold or a cognate thereof and the early Virginia documents giving his name as Rockwell were clerical errors.
   
   source: Ken Rockwell ­http­://­homepages­.­rootsweb­.­com­/~­rootrock­/­DNAreport­.­html­
   http­://­homepages­.­rootsweb­.­ancestry­.­com­/~­rootrock­/­DNAguide­.­html­
   
   
   Arguing against Rockhold being the original name is the circumstance that the earlier Virginia patents, those granting land to Robert Rockwell, spell his name thus (Rockwell). These patents would have been signed by him and may have been made in his presence. Later patents, mentioning Rockhold, grant land to others and mention Rockhold as owner of adjoining land as part of the land description. See https://paulyfamily.org/index.php?ctype=gedcom (news item of 12 December 2008).
   
   Still an open question is why does Robert Rock* style himself Rockhold after the move to Maryland? Perhaps he was hiding his identity when he first arrived to the New World. Or perhaps he wanted to distinguish himself from the Connecticut Rockwells who were also Puritans.
5.   Probably Robert was not of Delft. He is not in the extensive card catalog of the archives of the Church of the Merchant Adventurers in the Delft Archives. The Church of the Merchant Adventurers was established in Delft in 1621 and moved from Delft to Rotterdam in 1635. Robert was born about 1605, or by another report 1612. So it is unlikely he was born in Delft. From about 1582 to 1621 the Church of the Merchant Adventurers was in Middelburg. There were a number of protestant English churches elsewhere in Holland - Rotterdam, The Hague, Leiden, and Amsterdam. There was also a Church of the Merchant Adventurers in Hamburg, related to the Delft Church.
   
   In Virginia Robert Rockwell was associated with Richard Bennett, later governor of Virginia. There was an Edward Bennet in the Hamburg Church ‎(see Dutch puritanism: a history of English and Scottish churches of the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by Keith L. Springer, 1982, p. 258)‎. A Richard Bennet was associated with the "Ancient Church" in Amsterdam. Richard Bennet sided with Ainsworth in the split of this church in 1610 ‎(ibid., p. 64)‎.
   
   The name Rockwell, including cognates, is not found in the above-cited book, nor in an earlier book on the same subject "De Merchant adventurers in de Nederlanden: een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van den engelschen handel met Nederland", Cris te Lintum, 1905.
6.   Alternate date of birth 1612.