William Tharp of Hanover

The estate of William Tharp or Tharpe was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 420 acres of land in St James and 450 acres of land in Hanover, total 870 acres. This was probably William, eldest son of John Tharp II. William Tharp of Hanover married Ann, daughter of Richard Haughton, and had issue.

1. William Tharp of Hanover, planter. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1739. Slave-ownership at probate: 23 of whom 17 were listed as male and 6 as female. 5 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £1082 Jamaican currency of which £792.5 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £0 currency cash, £0 currency debts and £14 currency plate.

2. Will of William Tharp planter of [Hanover] in the island of Jamaica [made in 1737] proved in London 08/11/1745. He left his [unspecified] estates between his two sons William and John. The will identified his wife as Ann and his executors as Richard Haughton and Philip Haughton. The will of William Tharp was proved in Jamaica in 1737.

'A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm; Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1871) vol. II p. 1369.

1. Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.

2. PROB 11/743/87; Vere Langford Oliver, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910-1919) vol. 2 p. 162.

NB the genealogy of the Tharp family has proved hard to unravel. LBS has identified at least seven William Tharps active in Jamaica between the 1730s and the 1830s, some with more confidence than others, in four branches. To date, these men are: (a) in a cluster associated with 'St James' and the Reading and Plumb estate there (1) William Tharp who married Ann Haughton and died c. 1739 with two sons William and John; (2) William of St James, inferred to be son of William of Hanover, d. 1765, having married Sarah Ann; (3) William Haughton Tharp, baptised in 1761, known to be son of William and Sarah Ann Haughton; (b) [with more confidence from LBS] in a cluster associated with Green Pond, (4) William Tharp of Green Pond (1762-1809), son of John Tharp III; and (5) William Tharp of Heavitree, son of (4); (c) (6) William Tharp of Three Hills in St Mary (possibly shown as St Ann in 1782); and (4) one or more William Tharps active as attorneys and owners in the western Jamaica parishes in the 1830s, including possibly (7) William Tharp the son of Thomas Partridge Tharp, baptised c. 1800.