William Anderson (1625-1698) Accomack County, VA

Accomack County Courthouse

 


Thirty-fourth in a series of biographical sketches of qualifying ancestors of the Jamestowne Society whose descendants belong to the First Mississippi Company
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William Anderson was born in Accomack County, Virginia in 1625 as the son of Scottish immigrants Garret and Amey Anderson.  William lived for thirty years on his estate called “Occoconson,” located on the Pocomoke Sound in Accomack County, where he owned a fine house and 900 acres.

In 1681, he built another house in Onancock on Accomack Island.  He patented 1,000 acres lying between Onancock Creek and Matchatank and another large estate on the seaside.  Anderson served as a Burgess from Accomack in 1685-86.

In 1678, he married Mary Wise, the daughter of his neighbor Colonel John Wise and granddaughter of Captain Edmund Scarburgh. He and Mary  had two daughters, Comfort and Naomi. Although Comfort predeceased her father, William Anderson named and left bequests to her children in his will, probated in 1698.

William Anderson was an ardent Royalist and an Anglican.  He himself performed his daughter Naomi’s marriage to Francis Makemie, a Presbyterian minister who is today called the father of Presbyterianism in America. William Anderson died in 1698 and was buried on his estate at Pocomoke.
 
First Mississippi Company ancestor of William Anderson: Donna Davis Lane