Nicholas Gassaway

Colonel Nicholas Gassaway (Baptized 11 March 1634, died between 10 and 27 January 1691Julian Calendar) was a colonial military and political leader and justice in early Maryland. He is the progenitor of the some five and a half thousand Americans who bear the family name in the 2000 census.

Family name

Col. Gassaway is also notable for having settled on "Gassaway" as the family name (also spelled Gasaway, Gasway and Gazaway), a variant of his father Thomas Gaswaie’s family name. The "Gassaway" spelling had already appeared sporadically in England, as in a baptismal record of 1620, and Nicholas's own baptismal record, in the registers of St. Margaret's, Westminster, has "Gasway." Several spellings are used in the records for his siblings. Mary (1622) and Thomas (1628) have "Gaswaie"; Joyce (1626) has "Gasway"; Jane (1636) and Anne (1639) have "Gassaway"; but when Ann dies as a young child, in 1632, her burial record has "Gaswaie.". Sister Hester's baptismal record (1642) has "Gassoway", while a second Anne, baptized in 1644, has "Gaseaway."