Thomas Forrest (colonist)

Thomas Forrest, Esq, also known as Thomas Forrest, Gentleman, in the Jamestown Colonists historic lists (May 1572 in Morborne, Huntingdonshire, England – 1641 in St. Mary's City, Maryland), was a gentleman financier in the Virginia Company. At that time, "gentleman" denoted a man of the lowest rank of the English gentry, standing below an esquire and above a yeoman. By definition, this category included the younger sons of the younger sons of peers, knights, and esquires in perpetual succession; thus the term captures the common denominator of gentility (and often armigerousness) shared by both constituents of the English aristocracy: the peerage and the gentry.

On October 1, 1608, what is known as the Second Supply, came to the new colony of Virginia aboard the English ship the Mary and Margaret (or Mary-Margaret, both names appear in the records) under Captain Christopher Newport to resupply the colony at Jamestown, Virginia. Thomas Forrest was listed as a gentleman on that ship as shown on its manifest. This ship brought with it the first two women to come to Jamestown, Thomas Forrest's second wife Mistress Forrest (Margaret Foxe) and Anne Burras, Margaret's maid. Thomas Forrest is said in genealogies listed on the internet to have brought his son Peter (born 1601 in Morborne of Thomas' first marriage to Elizabeth Duncastle). However, as Peter would have been six or seven at the time, this is unlikely and his name is not on the ship's manifest. Thus it is more likely that Peter, who died in Maryland in 1665 in St. Mary's County, Maryland, came later. Thomas and Margaret had married on August 16, 1605, in St. Giles in the Fields, London, England, four years after Peter was born. Peter is a direct ancestor of Uriah Forrest of Revolutionary War fame.

Thomas's elder brother, Miles Forrest, inherited the title to their father's estates and the younger Thomas set out for the adventure of securing new land in a new colony. Thomas was a member of the Virginia Company (also known as the Charter of the Virginia Company of London or the London Company) that established the colony. In this pivotal time in English history toward the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the power of the landed gentry for whom wealth was land, was giving way to the rising class of merchants, for whom wealth was trade in shippable goods, such as gold, tea, and tobacco. Thomas was one of the gentry who made the transition from the old to the new. In an interesting footnote in history: one of the founders of colonial America is a direct descendant of one of the founders of Norman England over 500 years prior.

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