The English
Camp/Kemp Ancestors
England & Virginia
The
English
Camp/Kemp
Ancestors
We really have no
conclusive proof that our known relative of Thomas Camp/Kemp I
is
related to the Camp/Kemps of England. There is a good deal of
conjecture surrounding this family and early settlements in
Jamestown
based on the investment of Lawrence Camp/Kemp in the early
Virginia
trading company.
Several researchers
have
proposed that there is a connection to the family of William
Campe of
London, who married Mary Farmer in 1584 in London but no true
ancestorl line has been established. William Kemp and Mary
Farmer had
at least four sons: Lawrence, Richard, Nicholas, and Thomas.
Most of
the records that could have established this family line were
burned
the Great Fire of London of 1666. William Campe may be related
to the
Kempe family of Norfolk.
"If William Campe's
son
or grandson Thomas was the one mentioned as a kinsman of
Robert Kempe,
Baronet, in Gissing, Norfolk, he might have been the son of
the Robert
Kempe, father of Batholomew who became the ancestor of most of
the
Kempes in Norfolk. However, the date sequence places doubts
upon this
supposition.
In 1637 in Nasing
(Gissing ?) Parish, Essex County, England, the names of
Nicholas and
Thomas Camp, brothers were listed on a Jury Duty List. It is
claimed
these two men came to America. there was a mention of
kinsmen in Essex
County noted in the LW & T of Frances Mingay Kempe in
1632. This,
the relationship is possible. however, there was a John de
Combes in
County Essex in the middle of the 13th Century. He and his
wife Alice
Gunter had a son named Nicholas Combes or Camp or Kemp, who
fathered a
son John Kemp (Kempe) he, in turn, fathered William, who
fathered a
Robert who married Ann Apulderfield and had among others, a
son named
William. William married Mary Colt and had Robert, Henry,
John, Arthur,
Ann, George, and Margaret.
Nicholas previously
mentioned and the brother of Thomas Camp or Kemp, settled in
New
England and Thomas went to Virginia, not long after 1635....
Thomas
Kemp appeared in Virginia, in or before 1641. Just what
relationships
these men had with the ones of the same names in Nasing is
not
definitely proven, but it is accepted that they were the
same persons.
Not too far distant from Nasing Parish lay Hundson Parish in
Herts. The
register of that parish showed an Edward Camp and wife Grace
with
children. One Edward was baptized in that parish on
September 21, 1617.
Edward and Grace had other children named William, Philemon,
George,
Mary and Grace. (See Herbert C. Bibbs, The Parish
Registers of
Hunsdon 1546-1837, London, 1915) [William. p. 4]
Lawrence Kemp, son of
William and Mary Farmer Campe was a member of the Company of
Honorable
Drapers and Weavers. Lawrence had no children of his own but
was a
prominent figure who made a number of investments that left
him very
well off. In John Burke's History of Virginia, Vol.
No. 1
appendix, Lawrence Camp is the named as a large subscriber to
the fund
for colonizing Virginia and was therefore called a "Member of
the Great
Charter of the Virgina Company" when it was granted by King
James I on
May 23, 1609. He had owned seven shares of stock in the
Company which
he was allowed to draw 700 acres of land in Gloucester County,
Virginia. This land fell to his brother Thomas Camp upon his
death. In
England, Lawrence Camp endowed a fund at Cambridge University
for the
maintenance of poor scholars. He also gave 7000 pounds to
found an Alms
House in Parish of Fraim Barnet in his home county. He was
also the
builder and patron of the Church of All-Hallows-In-The Wall
where be
was
buried. On his death his estate was divided among his three
brothers.
Richard took the property in England and remained there,
Nicholas took
the New England investments, and Thomas received the land and
estates
in Virginia.
This Thomas may have
had
a son, Thomas Camp, who
is one of
the early known settlers. Therefore the Thomas Camp of King
and Queen
Co. Virginia is probably the great grand nephew of the
Lawrence Camp.
Most of the Colonial Records of Gloucester and county were
destroyed
which could prove this association. [Williams. p.43]
William
Campe
b. c1560 ST. Dunston in the West London, England
m. Mary Farmer 1584
St.
Peter Westcheap, London
| Children |
| Lawrence Campe |
b. * |
d. 1751 |
m. |
| Richard Campe |
b. * |
d. |
m.
|
| Nicolas Campe |
b.* |
d. |
m.
|
| Thomas Campe |
b.* |
d. |
m.
|
There was a Richard Kemp
who was Secretary of the Virginia Company. Richard Kemp
gave some
goods of Samuel Mathews to Thomas Hill after Samuel Mathews was
arrested in May of 1637. This prompted Mathews to seek redress
in
England where Hill was ordered to give back the belongings of
Mathews.
There must have been a close relationship to Thomas Hill. Thomas
Hill
received a patent for a 3/10- acre lot in Jamestown city next
door to
Richard Kemp, who built one of the first brick houses in
Jamestown
which known as house 44 in archeological digs. Thomas Hill later
buys a
600-acres of Richard Kemp's 4,332-acre Rich Neck tract near the
Middle
Plantation. Middle Plantation is now the site of
Williamsburg. [McCartney 389]
It seems that the above Richard Kemp had to flee to England in
1640
along with the Governor Christopher Wormeley. They were
accused
of cruelty and oppression in the colony and had considerable
difficulty
in making their return to Virginia. They were twice
prevented
from doing so by order of the house of lords, the second order
being
served on them when they were already on shipboard and about to
depart. These charges seems to have had a foundation in
fact. Wormley actually confessed later to having tried a
case
against one Taylor unjustly, when a commissioner of Elizabeth
City. [Tyler 106]
On February 12, 1620 the first William Campe came to Virginia.
He may
have arrived on the Bona Nova. A William Kemp also came to
Virginia on
the John and Dorothy in 1634. It is not known if these are
the
same person. [McCarney 441]
*I have some dates from LDS files but no documentations that
says that
we are dealing with same individual and Russ Williams has none.
See more on Jamestown.
sources:
Ancestral Rolls,
South
Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution,
Compiled 1938 by
Mrs E. T. Crawford, State Registrar.
Mann, Col. Robt. Neville and Catherine Creek-Mann,
Camp-Kemp
Family Hist., Vol. I, 1969
Landrum, Dr. L. B. O. . History of Spartanburg County,
South Carolina
1900, reprinted 1954.
McCartney, Martha W. Virginia
Immigrants
and Adventureers, 1607-1635, a biographical
dictionary.
Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia
of
Virginia biography. Vol. I, New York, Lewis
Historical Pub.
Co., 1915.
Williams, E. Russ, Jr. The Kemp, Turner and Roberts
Families on
Little Silver Creek, Washington Parish Louisiana. 1992,
Williams
Genealogical Pub., 514 Cole Ave, Monroe, LA 71203
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