​Twelfth in a series of biographical sketches on Burgesses whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company; in honor of the 400th anniversary of the July 30, 1619, meeting of the first representative governmental body in America at the 1617 Church on Jamestown Island
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David Crawford was born circa 1625 in Scotland, emigrating to the Virginia Colony with his father, John Crawford, around 1643.  His father was later killed in Bacon's Rebellion of 1676.
 
Crawford received a land grant in the Parish of Martin’s Hundred, James City County, as early as 7 Aug 1667.  He later settled in that part of St. Peter’s Parish, New Kent, which ultimately became St. Paul’s Parish, Hanover County; here he patented land in 1672, naming his plantation Assasquin.  On 23 Jan 1687, Crawford was elected to the vestry of St. Peter’s Parish, an office he held until the division of the parish in 1704, after which he served as a member of the vestry of the new St. Paul’s Parish.  He served as one of the two church wardens of St. Peter’s from 1698 to 1700.
 
During the first session of the Assembly of 1691-1692, an Act was passed creating King and Queen County from New Kent, and Burgesses from both counties were elected for the second session this this assembly.  Crawford was one of the two Burgesses elected for New Kent and took his seat in the House of Burgesses on 01 Apr 1692.  He was instrumental in enacting legislation requiring Clerks of County Courts to maintain offices in their respective Court Houses. 
 
An act in Henning’s Statutes-at-Large shows David Crawford deeding the Assasquin estate of four hundred acres to his grandson William Meriwether.   He granted 200 acres in St. Paul’s Parish to another grandson, David Meriwether, in 1697.  He amassed many acres of land and operated a large plantation that eventually became part of the site of Richmond, Virginia, in the 17th Century.
 
The name of David Crawford’s wife is unknown; however, he married and had several children: Elizabeth who married Nicholas Meriwether, a daughter who married a Lewis, Angelina who married a McGuire, John, and Sarah.  As an elderly man, he was allegedly killed by the Pamunkey Indians about 1710 in New Kent County, Virginia.
 
Note: An excavation of the site of David Crawford's fortified home began In 2010.
 

First Mississippi Company Descendants of David Crawford: Kenneth Holt Oilschlager

           
 
 
 
 
 

​ Joseph Bridger was elected as a Burgess to represent Isle of Wight County in 1658.  Who was this man?

Joseph Bridger, born in 1628 in the Parish of Dursley, England, was the son of Samuel Bridger.  A dedicated Royalist, Bridger came to Virginia about 1655, at a time when those supporting King Charles II in exile in France were fleeing England to escape Cromwellian persecution or possibly death.  He did well in Virginia, and settled below Jamestowne, south of the James River, and probably patented more land than any other resident of Isle of Wight County during the 17th century.  

Bridger was chosen to represent Isle of Wight County in the House of Burgesses in the session of 1658. After 1661, he filled the position without interruption until about 1672.  As a Burgess, he received 250 pounds of tobacco for each day the assembly was in session in Jamestowne.  In 1664, Captain Bridger and two other commissioners were sent to Chesapeake Bay to settle the dispute of a claim by the State of Maryland over a county line.

He attained the rank of colonel in 1672 and in 1673, at the age of 45, became a member of the Council of State and General Court of the aging Virginia governor, Sir William Berkeley.

Bridger was destined to take an active part in a series of historic events in Virginia history.  With the governor's authorization he formed a 500-man army to fight the Indians who threatened the farmers. But Colonel Bridger never used his militia to protect these farmers because the governor was trading with the Indians for their valuable furs.  Lacking government protection, the farmers became rebellious and allied with Nathaniel Bacon, a dissatisfied member of the governor’s Council.  Berkeley was forced to flee Jamestowne; and Bacon, who named himself “General by consent of the people,” called Joseph Bridger a “wicked and pernicious councilor” for his continued loyalty to the governor and the King of England.  Bridger fled with Berkeley; but Bridger’s son, Joseph Bridger, Jr., cast his lot with Nathaniel Bacon.  Bridger disinherited his son and struck his name from his will in a codicil, perhaps because of their political differences.  
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While in exile, Bridger witnessed the governor’s will and was appointed by the King to continue as a member of the Council. Berkeley was instructed to rebuild Jamestowne, burned by Nathaniel Bacon, and asked to have each Council member build a home there.  By 1682, Joseph Bridger’s house was completed, and the Council met in his new home on the afternoon of November 25 that year.

Colonel Bridger’s will was dated 03 August 1683 and probated 08 May 1686 in Isle of Wight County.  In it he named his mother, Mrs. Mary Bridger; his wife, Hester (Pitt) and children: Joseph, Samuel, William, Martha, Mary and Elizabeth. Bridger was buried at his plantation named “Whitemarsh”; but in 1894 his body was moved to the chancel of the Old Brick Church near Smithfield.

First Mississippi Company Descendants of Joseph Bridger: Janice (Joy) Willis Herron, Cynthia Walker Kennedy

            
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Tenth in a series of biographical sketches on Burgesses whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company; in honor of the 400th anniversary of the July 30, 1619, meeting of the first representative governmental body in American at the 1617 Church on Jamestown Island

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Christopher Branch served as a Burgess from Henrico County, VA.  Who was this man?

Christopher Branch was about 22 years old when, in March 1619/20, he and wife Mary Addy embarked on the London Merchant for Virginia.  He is listed in 1624 as living on the “College Land” in present Henrico County.  In the 1624/25 muster, he, his wife and nine-month old son, Thomas, are named in the same location.

 In 1634, Christopher Branch of Henrico County was granted a lease on 100 acres.  The next year, he patented 250 acres at “Kingsland” adjacent to his leased land using headrights gained for transporting himself and four others.  By 1639 his plantation had grown to 450 acres.

By 1640 there was a glut of tobacco on the market.  The General  Assembly decided to limit the tobacco crop to a percentage per planter and to destroy the remainder.  Branch was then a Burgess for Henrico and was named by the Assembly to inspect each planter’s tobacco crop.  In 1641 he was again named Burgess and in 1656 he was named a Justice.
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His will dated June 1678 and verified by witnesses in February 1682 indicated the general time of his death and that he was still at “Kingsland” at that time.  His wife, Mary Addy, died much earlier.  They were the parents of three sons: Thomas, William and Christopher.

Christopher Branch was the third great grandfather of President Thomas Jefferson.
 
First Mississippi Company Descendants of Christopher Branch: Suzanne Worthington Walters, Clayton Walters, Thomas Walters  
 

​Ninth in a series of biographical sketches on Burgesses whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company; in honor of the 400th anniversary of the July 30, 1619, meeting of the first representative governmental body in American at the 1617 Church on Jamestown Island

Cheney Boyce was elected as a Burgess to represent Shirley Hundred in 1629.  Who was this man?
 
Cheney Boyce, born in 1586 in England, first came to the Virginia Colony before 1616 and survived the Indian massacre of 1622.  Some authorities suggest that Cheney's first wife, Sarah, was captured during the Indian raid; others, however, disregard this idea. Cheney is found in John Throgmorton’s Muster of the inhabitants of West and Shirley Hundred taken on 22 January 1624.  Cheney is listed as a single man, aged 26 years, who arrived on the George.
 
Cheney served as Burgess for Shirley Hundred Island in 1629, 1630, and 1632.  He married a woman whose first name was Joyce about 1635; their one known child was Thomas Boyce whose testimony stating that he is the only son of Cheney Boyce appeared in the Charles City County Court Order of 1655-1665, p. 355.
 
Cheney was designated as an "Ancient Planter" in the land grant he received for 1550 acres including the 100-acre bequest for being a settler before the time of Sir Thomas Dale.   Boyce was responsible for importing 29 persons, according to Nell  Nugent's  Cavaliers and Pioneers   p. 24.   
 
In August 1637, Boyce received another grant on Merchants' Hope Creek in Charles City County.  The final land patent was dated 1 September 1643, when he received an additional 1,198 acres of land.  The date of Cheney's death was after 1643 and well before 26 Oct 1649, when Cheney’s widow, Joyce, was described as being the widow of Richard Tye, her second husband. 
Thomas Boyce's records from the court primarily deal with property due him from his father's estate.  Thomas petitioned the court to gain control of his father’s land, which, at Cheney’s death, had become the property of his mother, Joyce, and her second husband, Richard Tye. Joyce Boyce Tye apparently married a third time Dr. John Cogan.  Several records establish a relationship between Cheney and Joyce Boyce and their daughter-in-law Emelia Boyce, wife of son Thomas.  Emelia Boyce also obtained property from her grandfather, Richard Craven, another qualifying ancestor of the Jamestowne Society.
 
First Mississippi Company Descendants of Cheney Boyce: Azalia Smith Francis Moore and Steven Merril Smith
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Eighth in a series of biographical sketches on Burgesses whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company; in honor of the 400th anniversary of the July 30, 1619 meeting of the first representative governmental body in America at the 1617 Church on Jamestown Island



Edward Bennett
1577-1651
Isle of Wight County, VA
 
Edward Bennett served as a Burgess from Isle of Wight County, VA.  He was born 2 Feb 1577 in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, England, the fifteenth child of Robert and Elizabeth Bennett. In 1621 he ]established a plantation in Isle of Wight County on the Warrosquoake River and named it after the river. Bennett was a Puritan, as were several of his Virginia neighbors. His patent for Virginia land was contingent upon his settling 200 people in the colony, and the first settlers he transported arrived on the Sea Flower in 1622.  Within a month of their arrival in Virginia, the Indian Massacre of 1622 occurred, and 53 settlers out of the 347 colonists killed died at Bennett’s plantation. 

He returned to England and married Mary Bourne, daughter of a prominent Somerset merchant in late 1622.  Mary was 28 years younger than Edward, and they had six children together. The first two children were born in England:  Mary, born in 1623; and Elizabeth, born in 1626. 

Bennett was a wealthy London merchant and the owner of a large fleet of ships which traded with Virginia, largely importing tobacco.  He was also Commissioner of Virginia at the Court of England and an investor in the Virginia Company of London, which settled over 600 people in Isle of Wight County.
About 1627 Bennett fled to Amsterdam, Holland during the Puritan migrations, where, because of his wealth, he became an elder of the Ancient Church.  By 1631, Bennett had left Holland and moved to Bennett’s Plantation in Isle of Wight.

Colonists from 80 plantations banded together in eight plantations near Jamestowne for safety, and Bennett’s plantation was abandoned until a fort was built there and Governor George Yeardly drove the Warraskoyak and Nansemond Indians out of their villages in reprisals.  The census of 1623 showed that Bennett’s plantation, which he renamed Bennett’s Welcome, was reestablished with 33 settlers, “including 4 negroes.”  In 1624 the total population was 31.   Because of the 1622 massacre, the settlement in the Isle of Wight County is dated from that year.

Four of Edward and Mary’s children were born in Virginia:  Sylvestra, born in 1630 in Isle of Wight; John, born in 1632 on Hogg Island; Ann, born in 1633 on Hogg Island but died as a baby; and Jasper, born in 1635 on Hogg Island. 
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Edward Bennett represented Isle of Wight County in the Virginia General Assembly in 1628 and then left with his family for England.  He left the management of Bennett’s Welcome to his Puritan nephew, Richard Bennett, who served as Governor of the Commonwealth of VA from 1652-1655. Isle of Wight County was a Puritan stronghold in Anglican Virginia for many years. Bennett never returned to Virginia and died before 3 Jun 1651 in England.
  
First Mississippi Company descendants of Edward Bennett: Dell Dickens Scoper
 
 

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What do Jamestowne, the Mayflower and Shakespeare have in common? The answer is Stephen Hopkins, a Jamestowne settler, a Mayflower Pilgrim and a survivor of the wreck of the Sea Venture, the basis for Shakespeare’s comedy, “The Tempest “. Stephen Hopkins was born in Hampshire, England in 1581. In 1603/4, he married his first wife, Mary. By 1608, they had three children. In 1608, Hopkins’ life took a dramatic turn. He was hired by the Reverend Richard Buck and charged with the reading of the Psalms and Chapters at Sunday services for the Virginia Company.

On June 2, 1609, he boarded the Sea Venture with Sir Thomas Gates, Jamestowne Governor, Sir George Summers/Somers, and Christopher Newport, previously Captain of the Susan Constant, who had brought the first settlers to Jamestowne in 1607. In July of 1609, the Sea Venture became separated from the remainder of the third supply fleet during a tropical storm. For three days the vessel was tossed by hurricane- driven waves, sailless and taking on water. Just as hope seemed lost, Sir George Summers spotted land and beached the ship on the coast of present day Bermuda.

Life on the island of Bermuda proved to be so easy, that when Sir George Summers ordered a smaller ship be built from the wreckage of the Sea Venture to take the survivors to Jamestowne, some members of the crew refused to cooperate. Their leader was Stephen Hopkins. He was apprehended and tried for mutiny. Sentenced to death, he pleaded for his life so eloquently that he was pardoned.

In May, 1610, the survivors reached Jamestowne. His mutinous efforts in Bermuda gained him such notoriety that Shakespeare wrote him into “The Tempest” as the plotting butler, Stefano. Hopkins remained in Virginia until 1614, when the death of his wife forced his return to England. He worked as a shopkeeper and married Elizabeth Fisher in 1617/8.

Still longing to return to the New World, he, his wife and three children joined the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620. His wife gave birth in route to a son named Oceanus. Hopkins signed the Mayflower Compact on November 11, 1620. In Plymouth, he served an ambassador between the Pilgrims and Native Americans and as an aid to the Governor. In later life he became a shopkeeper and died a wealthy man in 1644.

This biography was provided by Mary Jane Simpson, Central North Carolina Company Historian. Descendants of Stephen Hopkins who belong to the Central North Carolina Company of the Jamestowne Society: Dr. John Blue Clark, Jr. and Mr. Samuel M. Hobbs

   

Seventh in a series of biographical sketches on members of the House of Burgesses whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company in honor of the 400th anniversary of the July 30, 1619, meeting of the first representative governmental body in American at the 1617 Church on Jamestown Island
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​Southey Littleton
Abt. 1646-1679
Accomack County, VA
  
Southey Littleton was the second son of Ann Southey and her second husband Nathaniel Littleton.  Ann came to Virginia in 1622 on the Southampton with her parents and five siblings.  By the time of the 1624/25 Muster, Ann’s father and three of her siblings were dead, and she lived in James City with her mother and a brother named Henry.  Ann Southey Harmar, widow, had married Nathaniel Littleton by 1 Jun 1740.  Nathaniel Littleton, sixth son of Sir Edward Littleton of Shropshire, England, came to Virginia about 1635 and settled in the part of Accomack County that became Northampton.
  
Southey Littleton owned 2,340 acres at Nandua Creek in Northampton, 2,300 acres in Accomack County, and other land in Northampton County and Somerset County, MD.  In 1674, Southey inherited 4,250 acres from his brother Edward Littleton.  Much of the Littleton land had originally belong to Southey’s mother, Ann Southey—land she inherited from her first husband Charles Harmar and from her father Henry Southey. 
  
Southey Littleton was a prominent figure on the Eastern Shore.  He was a member of Governor Berkeley’s court that sat in judgment of members of Bacon’s Rebellion.  He served as a Burgess from Accomack in 1676 and 1677 and was one of three men appointed to value goods from the condemned ship Phenix.  Along with Colonel William Drummond, he was sent to Albany, NY, to confer with Governor Andros on Indian Affairs; he died while engaged in this commission.  His will, written at Albany-on-the Hudson, was proved in NY and in Accomack.  He named his seven children in his will and his executors were charged with the disposition of 7,314 acres in Accomack.
  
Southey married Sarah Bowman, who predeceased him.  His children were named Nathaniel, Bowman, Esther, Sarah, Elizabeth, Gertrude, and Southey.
 
Descendants of Southey Littleton who belong to the First Mississippi Company: Betty Stewart and Betina Cooper
 

   On November 18, 1618, two of the Virginia Company of London’s officers, Sir Thomas Smythe and Sir Edwin Sandys, drew up a set of instructions to the newly appointed governor, Sir George Yeardley.  Unlike the three charters before it, this Charter, approved by King James I, not only dealt with matters of financing the Virginia Colony, it established a system of self-governance. Accordingly, it is referred to as the Great Charter of 1618. 
   Rather than relying on stock sales or a lottery to raise funds to support the struggling colonizing venture, it was decided that the colony’s greatest resource, land, would be utilized.  This system of giving 50 acres of land to those who paid for their or other’s (including indentured servants’) passage was known as the headright system.
    The Great Charter eliminated military law which had been used to rule the colony since 1610.  Now the colony was to be jointly governed by elected representatives (burgesses) along with the King’s council and appointed governor.  The first legislative meeting of these democratically elected burgesses would take place the following summer at the church in Jamestown. Years later, when the legislature became bicameral, it became known as the House of Burgesses. This legislative body begun in 1619, the first of if its kind in North America, still meets today and is known as the Virginia General Assembly.
   Colonial Virginia’s process of self-rule was thereby institutionalized on 30 July 1619 and set an example for others to follow. As Virginians migrated in search of new opportunity, they took these lessons of self-rule they had learned and put them into practice in other colonies, territories and states.
   In late July of 2019, there will be a large celebration commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first legislative assembly held in North America when Governor Sir George Yeardley, the King’s Council and 20 democratically elected burgesses met in the Jamestown Church on 30 July 1619.

​Capt. Thomas Graves, a shareholder in the Virginia Company who came to Jamestown in 1608 aboard the Second Supply, was one of the original 20 burgesses representing Smythe’s Hundred and the tenth great grandfather of Lewis & Clark Company Governor, John Graves.

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Descendants of William Hatcher who belong to the First Mississippi Company: John Wycoff Godsey, Ellen Lane McAllister, Constance Ellen Godsey, Dylan Bishop, Dean Bishop .
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