The surename Jarman, German, Jerman, is said to have its origin with a small group of people sent by Henry 1 of England to Whales in the year 1107 "to civilize the Welsh people by arts of peace." These Flemish colonists spoke low german, and because of their language the Welsh people called them "Germans." No doubt their idenity was all but lost in the ensuing 550 years before any of them sailed for an american harbor. They were indeed peace-loving people as they came to America as members of the Society of Friends. Amoung the early Welsh Quaker immigrants were John and Margaret Jerman, who came from Langerig, Montgomeryshire, Whales, in 1683, and settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania. An Edward Jerman was prominent among the Welsh Quakers in the Philadelphia area as early as 1703 or before. It is on the Eastern shore that the Quakers are first found in Virginia. They were there as early as 1656-7, and they settled first in Accomac County due to its sparce population and remote location from the seat of the government across the Bay at Jamestown.
These quiet people with their sober colors and unasuming manners were looked upon with disfavor by other colonists. In 1660 the Virginia Assembly enacted very stringent laws with regard to them, and the most absured charges were brought against them in the court of Northampton. In Accomac County they were accused of uttering blasphemy, defying the laws, and slandering the clergy.
Charges of "denying the incarnation of Christ and speaking of God as a foolish old man" brought down on them all the wrath intolerance can generate. Many of the Quakers fled across the border into Somerset County, Maryland, and formed a colony there. Those who remained in Virginia bemoned that "the indians whom they had charged to be heathens exceeded the whites in kindness, in courtesies, in love and mercy unto them they were strangers".
On February 24, 1665, Ann German was transported into Somerset County, Maryland, by William Stevens, who was known in Accomac County to be a Quaker sympathizer although it was never proven that he was a Quaker. Each was granted 50 acres of land by Govenor Calvert of Maryland. The transfer record was signed by Stephen Horsey and Henry Boston, both of whom are listed by Hinshaw as members of the Accomac County, Virginia, Quaker meetings. Although it has not been proven that Ann German was the mother of William Jarman, who died in 1707 or early 1709 in Somerset , Maryland from which Worchester County was carved in 1742, it is entirely possible, and i think very probable, that she may have been.
William Jarman first appears in the Accomac County, Virginia, land records when he purchased 300 acres of land in 1674. Five years later in 1679, he and his wife, Dorthy, sold one acre of land to certain trustees as the site of the Guilford Quater Meetinghouse. This the first mention of Dorthy as the wife of William Jarman. William and Dorthy bought and sold a good amount of land, both in Accomac County, Virginia, and in Somerset County, Maryland. A 1704 deed indicated they were living in Maryland at that time. A 1705 deed names William Jarman as "of Accomac County in Virginia". The boundry was somewhat indefinate for a number of years. The will of William Jarman made in 1708 and probated in 1709, names the wife, "Dorrity" and five sons, William, George Jobe, Henry, and Truit. Land records prove John to have been the sixth son. It is believed that Robert Jarman, who died in Baltimore County in 1722, was the seventh.