Capt. John Gaither
John Gaither was born about 1646 in Virginia and was brought into Maryland as a child, about 1650. He grew up on South River in Anne Arundel County.
His parents are not proved. Harry Wright Newman, who wrote the family's history in 1933, believed he was the son of John and Mary Geather. A John Geather of Anne Arundel County was dead by 24 November 1652. That day the Provincial Court at St. Mary's granted "[Mary] Geathar the widow and relict of John Geather late of the County of Annarundel" the administration of "all the rights debts goods and Chattells" of her late husband. She was to have them valued by two men sworn before the county's commander and to bring the inventory to the Secretary's office by the first of May.
No warrant in the name of Gather was issued in Maryland until 26 January 1663, when John Gather and Robert Proctor jointly received 875 acres called Abington. Newman took that to mean the son had been "an infant at the time of his father's death sometime before 1652" and "was unable to hold land until he reached his majority." In the law of the time an infant meant any child under twenty one. The family's tradition is that their first ancestor was a Virginia dissenter who came into Maryland at the invitation of Governor Stone. William Stone, Lord Baltimore's governor, had invited Puritans from Virginia to settle on the Severn in 1649, so a death there by 1652 fits the story.
In 1662 he renewed a warrant for 450 acres. A warrant was the land office's order to survey a stated acreage for the holder, the first step toward a patent. In 1663, with Robert Proctor, he surveyed "Abington" at the head of South River.
Joseph Morley, a South River planter, made his will on 4 April 1672. It named Robert Proctor and John Gaither as executors and legatees of his whole estate, and it was proved on 13 February 1674. J. D. Warfield's 1905 history calls the South River men of Morley's will his sons-in-law. Gaither and his partners sold "Morley's Lot" and "Morley's Grove" to Col. William Burgess.
Over the next thirty years he bought the land around him. He took the Freeman lands from Capt. Edward Burgess, executor of Capt. George Puddington, who had bought them from Robert Proctor and his wife. In 1690 he bought from Capt. John Browne, "mariner, of London," the lands laid off for a Mr. Chapman out of "Freeman's Fancy," and the part of Abington lately held by Proctor. When he died he held all of the Freeman lands and all of Abington except the part held by William Ridgely and his wife Elizabeth. "John Gaither contributed liberally to the defense of the settlers against Indian invasions," the 1905 history adds.
He served the county in its wars. He was paid 80 pounds of tobacco for the expedition of 1678 against the Nanticoke, and 580 pounds of tobacco for public service in November 1681. Tobacco was the colony's money. In 1696 he was listed among the military officers of Anne Arundel County.
His wife was Ruth. Their children were born in the All Hallows register from January 1677/8: John, Ruth in 1679, Benjamin in 1681, Rachel in 1687 and Edward in 1689, then Mary in 1692, Rebecca in 1695 and Susan in 1697.
He died without a will and was buried at All Hallows on 12 November 1702. His widow Ruth administered the estate. Its inventory, taken on 20 May 1703, came to £437, and his sons John and Benjamin were approved as kin, the next of kin who had to agree to it. A commission of three neighbours, a Howard, a Hammond and a Duvall, divided the land. His eldest son, John, as heir-at-law, deeded parts of it to his brothers Benjamin and Edward. In 1715 Edward resurveyed his father's estate into one tract, "Gaither's Collections," next to Richard Snowden's land on South River.
On 13 January 1703/4 his widow Ruth married Francis Hardesty. The rent roll of 1707 shows Hardesty holding The Landing and Gaither's Range "by marrying the relic of John Gather." A relic was a widow, and a rent roll listed the yearly quitrent each landholder owed the proprietor. His eldest son John had a daughter Mary, baptized in 1724, who married Seth Warfield, a grandson of John's sister Ruth.
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Cite: Heirology, "Capt. John Gaither (1646-1702)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/capt-john-gaither-1646-1702-2add04.