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| Birth: | About 1634 in Cavanacor House, Ballindrait, Lifford, Donegal, Ireland |
| Death: | 27 Mar 1727 in Dames Quarter, Somerset County, Maryland (Whitehall) |
| Sex: | F |
| Father: | Roger Tasker b. 1605 in Broomfield Castle, Londonderry, Ireland |
| Mother: | |
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| Burial: "Whitehall," Somerset County, Maryland |
| AKA (Facts Pg): Magdalen Tasker Porter (Widow) |
| Residence: 1654 part of Ballendrait, Parish of Lifford, Barony of Raphoe, Co. Donegal, Ireland 2 |
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Individual:
"The Pollag" Newsletter of Clan Pollock, 1 July 2000, "The Arrival of Robert and Magdalen Polke/Pollock in America," John F. Polk, Jr., Clan Pollock International Historian, pp. 3-4:
When did Robert and Magdalen Polke/Pollock, the progenitors of the Polk family in America first come to these shores? There will probablly never be a definitive answer to this question, but a sidelight from the history of Maryland and Donegal, Ireland can tell us how it came about.
In 1680 Colonel William Stevens, one of the founders and original Commissioners of Somerset County, Maryland, sent a letter to the Presbytery of Donegal in Ulster, asking that a "godly minister" be sent to look after the needs of the people of Somerset. The actual text of the letter has not survived, but it is referred to in the minutes of the Presbytery. The motives of Stevens can be seen as both enlightened and self-serving. He had acquired very extensive land rights in the form of warrants and patented land, probably more than any one else in the county at that time. He clearly needed settlers to increase the value of these holdings and realize a profit. At the same time one has to admire the open minded liberality of Colonel Stevens, a member of the established church and leader of the local government, in turning to a non-conformist group with which he had no obvious ties, to provide spiritual leadership for the people of his domain. The followers of the Covenant were not known as strong supporters of establishment power, in fact their reputation was quite the opposite. The record of the Presbytery does not indicate that he actually asked for settlers as well as ministers, but simply that "Col. Stevens from Maryland beside Virginia his desire of a godly minister is represented to us. The meeting will consider it seriously and do what they can in it", dated 29 December 1680.
Whatever its motivation, Colonel Stevens' letter arrived at a moment of great travail and no doubt had a profound impact on the Presbyterians of Dongegal as a whole. Following the restoration of Charles II in 1660 a number of repressive measures were taken against Presbyterians in Ulster which made their situation at least as difficult as that of the Catholics, a fact sometimes lost in view of the present day Protestant ascendancy in Northern Ireland. They had struggled thru [sic] the Ulster Plantation, the Catholic uprising of 1641, the Cromwellian devastation and plantation of Ireland, the restoration of Charles II, and faced the prospect of a Catholic restoration under James II. In 1670 there had been an aborted plot called Blood's Rebellion in which a number of Presbyterians were implicated. Most noteworthy for our story was Reverend William Trail, minister from Ballendrait near Lifford, the home of the Tasker family - possibly the man who united Robert and Magdalen Polke/Pollock in marriage and certainly the minister for their growing family. Rev. Trail was accused on purely circumstantial evidence of complicity in the plot and sent to Dublin for lengthy interrogations on his religious beliefs. He was released unconvicted but with strengthened faith and returned to Lifford, only to be held in prison during 1682. The affair was highly resented by the Presbyterians and gave them every reason to see their future prospects in Ulster as very bleak. The embattled, fortress psyche which these people had developed since first settling in Ulster was tightened another notch.
Thus it is easy to see the letter found a very attentive audience in Donegal. The response was predictably vigorous and its repercussions have echoed through the course of American history. The Presbytery sent not just one but four able and dedicated ministers with a clear vision to establish the Presbyterian faith in the New World. First and foremost among these was the young Rev. Francis Makemie, now recognized by the Presbyterian Church as their founder and patriarch in America. He was newly ordained in 1682 and specifically selected for the task of going to America and planting the seeds of his faith, which he did to great effect. Makemie arrived in Somerset around the spring of 1683 and stayed for a time at the home of Colonel Stevens, Rehobeth on the Pocomoke, where the earliest Presbyterian Church edifice in America was erected. Either coming with him or following very shortly afterwards was William Traile and within the next two years the Reverends Thomas Wilson of Killybegs and Samuel Davis. While the other three minstered to the people in Somerset, Makemie began to travel around the Chesapeake region establishing numerous frontier churches and ultimately organizing the first Presbytery of the American Church at Philadelphia in 1706. When the great wave of Scotch-Irish migration from Ulster commenced a decade or so later the Presbyterian structue was in place to lead and enliven them. The subsequent Presbyterian impact on the American frontier as it pushed down the great wagon road through Pennsylvania into [the] valley of Virginia and the Carolinas, and afterwards west beyond the Appalachians can truly trace its roots back to this precursor arrival in Somerset.
Along with these ministers it is certain that some of the Presbyterian families of Donegal also elected to cast their lot with the New World, hopefully leaving behind the turmoil of the old. Among these would appear to be the families of Knox, McKnitt, Wallace, Alexander, White, Galbraith, Caldwell, Gray - and Polk. Certainly Robert and Magdalen came within a few years of Makemie and Traile. And there were more. An interesting passage appears in a letter of Edward Randolph, a Virginia official, writing in 27 June 1692: "I hear he has continued Major King to bee ye Navall Officer in Somerset County on ye eastern shore, a place pestred with Scotch & Irish. About 200 families have within ye 2 years arrived from Ireland & settled in your County besides some hundred of family's there before."
Robert Polke's first appearance in Maryland colonial records was with the patenting of the tracts Polks Lott and Polks Folly in March 1687/8. It is likely that the family arrived some time before then, but exactly when will probably never be known. The Somerset Judicial records for 1683-87 are unfortunately lost, and the land records are complete but offer no additional citations, so there appears to be little chance of additional evidence being found that period. Probably the best estimate for the date of arrival of Robert and Magdalen Polke/Pollock and their family in America would be about a year before they patented land - my guess would be 1686.
(Note - In his book "Polk Family and Kinsmen" William H. Polk mentions a cattle earmark registered to a John Pelke in 1680 which can be found in Somerset court records, Liber IKL. However this John Pelke is not one of Robert and Magdalen's children, but another individual, possibly a close relative, who was an earlier arrival. A discussion about him appeared in January 1999 issue of The Pollag under the title "What's in a Name - Variations in Spelling").
- Debra Munn
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| Sources | | |
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- Title: Jack Ciaccia , Roots Web
- Title: Robin Whitney, RobinS1952@home.com, RootsWeb
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| SmartMatches | | |
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Individuals from other files that are believed to be the same person:
 Magdalen (Porter) Tasker | of kingharry |
| MAGDALEN TASKER | of blumberg |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Baran Family 2006 WLB@GenCircles |
| Magdalen (Porter) Tasker | of Hall-Ernst Genealogy |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Duke family |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Pages from the Paige family tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Chesebro' Genealogy@Gen Circles |
| Magdalen Tasker | of McKay/Caldwell |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Melting Pot |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Hammond family tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Abercrombie Families |
| Magdalen Tasker | of McKelvey Tree Top |
| Magdalen (Porter) Tasker | of Cates-Tinajero Genealogy |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Ancestors of nancy Gobble |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Lynch Family Tree |
| Magdalen "Margaret" Tasker | of Stockard-Family of Captain John Stockard |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Pat's Family Tree7-2005 |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Pat's Ancestors 7-2005 |
| Magdalen (Porter) TASKER | of HerveyGanoKrebill |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Southern Burkett |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Pike County Miley Martin Peach Fowler |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Meri's Family Tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Robertson |
| Magdalen,Porter TASKER | of Bruce Hiltz Ancestors |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Haljohnson |
| Magdalen TASKER | of Relatives of Miles & Angela Meyer |
| Magdalen Tasker | of North Carolina Starting Point |
| Magdalen Tasker | of gedcom |
| Magdalen Tasker | of gedcom |
| Magdalen Porter Tasker | of Peter Mick |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Snow-Hawkins-Corcoran-McKenzie |
| Magdalen Tasker (Widow) | of TinaSmithSansoneFiles |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Ancestors of Hamilton Swayne Prestridge |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Family of Legends & The Unknown |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Worley/Price & Starner/Spitters |
| Magdalen Tasker | of jdhaydon's file |
| Magdalen TASKER | of Ancestry of Roy Polk |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Haas-Victoria |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Haas-Victoria |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Ancestors of Martha Cross Mordecai |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Gowens and Reed Families |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Baker Byrd Logan Family |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Family Heritage |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Bill Polk - Direct Ancestry |
| Magdalen Tasker | of KAH Genealogy |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Southeastern Kentucky Roots |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Rommel, Brown, Kidd, Gentry Family |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Robinson Family Tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Robinson Family Tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Robinson Family Tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of robinson family tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Robinson, Babin, Phillips |
| Magdalen Tasker | of FAMILY TREE LEGENDS #! |
| Magdalen Tasker | of 2007gedcom |
| Magdalen "Marty" Tasker | of POLK Family Annex |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Baker, Byrd, Logan, Bean, Moody &c. |
| $Magdalen Tasker | of Pennys Roots |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Jody L. Howards Family Tree |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Ancestors, David B. Demeaux |
| Magdalen (Porter) Tasker | of Lindsey Family |
| Magdalen (Porter) Tasker | of Lindsey, Baker, Wormington, McWaters |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Carolina |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Thomas Family Genealogy |
| Magdalen Tasker | of Hollis/Wilson Ancestors |
| Magdalen Tasker | of HOLLIS/WILSON FAMILIES |
| Magdalen Tasker | of July 2007 |
| Magdalen Tasker | of HOLLIS/WILSON Ancestors |
Click the icon to see a SmartMatch in side-by-side windows.
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