Cunard, Ann

Ann Cunard was born in 1777. She was the daughter of Edward Cunard and Judith Hirst Cunard. She had at least four brothers and two sisters. Her last name appears in the historical record at least eight different ways: Cunard, Cunnard, Canard, Cannard, Conard, Connard, Conrad, and Conrads.

Ann Cunard appears in the Mason family manuscript account book under her father Edward’s account. On 28 April 1797, Edward paid Stevens Thomson Mason a small fee for work on a court case, Ann Cunard vs. Isaac Nichols. It is likely this case involved the complaint made at the May 1797 Quaker monthly meeting against Margery Nichols, Isaac’s wife, who accused Ann of stealing a coverlet. Due to the common law rule of coverture, married women were considered under the protection of their husbands, which is why the case was filed against Isaac instead of Margery. Ann’s father, Edward, filed the case because Ann was under twenty-one and not married, and therefore under the authority and protection of her father.

Ann married Thomas Beale, the son of Joseph and Hannah Beale, on 27 May 1802 in Hillsborough, Virginia. In 1803, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Pamela Maria Beal.

At the Quaker monthly meeting in August 1804, Thomas Beale applied for a certificate for himself, Ann, and Pamela to move to Middleton, Ohio. It appears that Ann and Pamela did move to Ohio, but Thomas spent time in both Ohio and Virginia. Ann died in Ohio at the age of thirty-one on 24 March 1811. Four years later, on 12 December 1815, Thomas died at the age of forty-one.

By Andrew Snowman