Gideon Macon, Burgess from New Kent County

​Seventeenth 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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The Macon family were French Huguenots who left France and then established themselves in England for several generations.  It is thought that the emigration took place soon after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 24 August 1572, and before the Edict of Nantes, which, in 1598, gave the Huguenots equal religious rights in France.

Gideon Macon was the son of William and Anne (Garland) Macon.

In 1671, Gideon Macon was an attorney at law in York County.  He was Secretary to Governor William Berkeley during his second administration from 1660 - 1677.  He was an early Vestryman in Bruton Parish, where a brass tablet to his memory marks a pew in the church.  In 1684 he was named church warden in St. Peter’s Parish and observed his church duties faithfully.  He entertained the vestry at his home, and in the Vestry Book on 04 March 1702 he is referred to “as lately deceased.”

Gideon Macon moved to New Kent County about 1680 and established his home on Macon’s Island.  Soon after building his home, he married Martha, daughter of William Woodward, the Indian Interpreter to the Pamunkey tribe.  He was given the title of Colonel as the Commander in Chief of the New Kent County Militia.  He became prominent in the affairs of New Kent County and was elected to the General Assembly where he served as Burgess in 1693 and 1696 to 1703.

On 10 October 1700 he wrote his will and named his wife, Martha, his Executor.  Following his death, Martha married for her second husband Captain Nathaniel West.  Gideon and Martha (Woodward) Macon had the following children:  (1) Gideon Macon, Jr., born 20 January 1682 and probably died before his father; (2) Anne, born 15 December 1684 who married James Christian; (3) Martha, born in 1687 who married Orlando Jones; (4) Elizabeth, born in 1690; (5) William Macon, born 12 November 1693 who married Mary Hartwell; (6) John, born 17 December 1695 who married Anne Hunt; (7) A daughter born in 1698; and (8) James, born 22 October 1701 who married Elizabeth Moore.  
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First Mississippi Company Descendant of Gideon Macon: Anita Lou Tribble Bove