The Mary Thear Myth

It is interesting how myths can develop and take on a life of their own.  For decades Skaggs researchers have been trying to fit a Mary Thear into their genealogies.  Mary Thear was supposedly the mother to a Richard and John Scaggs in Kent County, Maryland in the mid-1700s.  In 1928 a gentleman by the name of Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh published a volume of colonial Maryland records extracted from original sources.  One of these original sources was a list of the status of Maryland land leases in 1766, reported to the Lord Proprietor of Maryland, Lord Baltimore.  The Lord Proprietor owned the colony of Maryland and leased portions of it to Maryland residents.  A “land owner” in Maryland actually owned a lease and paid rent to the Lord Proprietor.  One of these lessees was listed as a Mary Thear by Brumbaugh.  Also listed were a Richard Scago and John Scago.  Many researchers interpreted this record as Mary Thear, mother of Richard and John Scaggs.  However, it appears that Brumbaugh had trouble reading the eighteenth century handwriting.  Robert W. Barnes and F. Edward Wright also read the handwriting and interpreted the record as follows: