"Cuthbert Fenwick, in command of a vessel called the Thomas, was licensed to trade with the New England colonists. Fenwick came to Maryland as an indentured servant of Captain Thomas Cornwallis. To come in this status to the colony was no disgrace. Indeed, many of the people who arrived in Maryland during the seventeenth century came under contracts of indenture. Some of them, like Fenwick, later became prominent in the province. In Cuthbert Fenwick's case, as was true in many other instances, it meant that the man did not have sufficient funds to pay for the cost of his passage to Maryland. Captain Cornwallis agreed to meet this expense provided Fenwick would work for him a stipulated number of years after his arrival in the colony. At the end of this period, anyone who, like Fenwick, had come to the province as a servant, became a freeman. As such, he wss entitled to all the civic rights and privileges that those enjoyed whose worldly possessions had enabled them to come originally as freemen. In addition to this, at the expiration of the period of servitude, the man, who had been freed, was given suitable articles of clothing, provisions, farm implements 'and fifty acres of land.' This was done in order to enable the servant, who had obtained his freedom, to make his own living in the colony.
"There were various reasons why a man like Fenwick, with his social standing, would be willing to come to Maryland as an indentured servant. Few that cmae to the colony could boast as fine a lineage as Fenwick. He was 'a scion of one of England's oldest and staunchest Catholic families ... the Fenwicks of Fenwick Tower, Northumberland County.' Perhaps he wished to go to Maryland because his family was in reduced circumstances. The Fenwicks, like all Catholics in England, were at this time subject to fines and confiscations under the harsh English laws directed at people of this faith. Or, it may have been that Fenwick realized that in Maryland he would have the liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. Possibly, it was the desire for adventure that made Fenwick want to come to the New World. He was a youth of twenty or perhaps twenty-one when he arrived in Maryland. Then, as now, it is often the spirit of adventure that is the animating motive of youths of his age and class. To young Fenwick the chance of establishing himself in the New World would naturally have made an appeal.
"Whatever reason he had for coming to Maryland, Cuthbert Fenwick soon attained a position of prominence in the colony. So complete was Cornwallis' faith in him that he made Fenwick his attorney. It was in this capacity, and while Captain Cornwallis was absent from the province, that Fenwick attended one of the meetings of the Governor's Council. Later Fenwick became a member of the House of Burgesses. At first we find Fenwick serving on many juries of which he was often the foreman. After he had been in the colony about ten years, he was made a commissioner in St. mary's county, an office out of which grew that of the early county court judge. So successful was he in the colony that he soon became possessed of considerable property. Indeed he was one of the largest taxpayers in the province. Along the banks of the Patuxent river he acquired a plantation of two thousand acres to which he gave the name of St. Cuthbert's 'in honour of his patron saint.' This estate, however, was more commonly known as Fenwick Manor."(2)