The Colony of Virginia was an English, later British, colonial settlement in North America between 1606 and 1776.
The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic launched major colonization expeditions in North America. The death rate was very high among early immigrants, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.
Old money is "the inherited wealth of established upper-class families " or "a person, family, or lineage possessing inherited wealth". It is a social class of the rich who have been able to maintain their wealth over multiple generations, often referring to perceived members of the de facto aristocracy in societies that historically lack an officially established aristocratic class, in contrast with new money whose wealth has been acquired within its own generation.
The Northern Neck is the northernmost of three peninsulas on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Potomac River forms the northern boundary of the peninsula; the Rappahannock River demarcates it on the south. The land between these rivers was formed into Northumberland County in 1648, prior to the creation of Westmoreland County and Lancaster County. The Northern Neck encompasses the following Virginia counties: Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond, King George and Westmoreland; it had a total population of 50,158 as of the 2020 census.
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America from 1634 until 1776, when it made common cause with the group of Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and, finally in 1781—as the 13th signatory to the Articles of Confederation—it ratified its perpetual union with that group as the state of Maryland. The province's first settlement and capital was St. Mary's City, located at the southern end of St. Mary's County, a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay that is bordered by four tidal rivers.
Sir William Berkeley was an English colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1660 to 1677. One of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina, as governor of Virginia he implemented policies that bred dissent among the colonists and sparked Bacon's Rebellion. A favourite of King Charles I, the king first granted him the governorship in 1642. Berkeley was unseated following the execution of Charles I, but his governorship was restored by King Charles II in 1660.
Plantations in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the English Crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from Great Britain. The Crown saw the plantations as a means of controlling, anglicising and 'civilising' Gaelic Ireland. The main plantations took place from the 1550s to the 1620s, the biggest of which was the plantation of Ulster. The plantations led to the founding of many towns, massive demographic, cultural and economic changes, changes in land ownership and the landscape, and also to centuries of ethnic and sectarian conflict. They took place before and during the earliest English colonisation of the Americas, and a group known as the West Country Men were involved in both Irish and American colonization.
First Families of Virginia (FFV) are the families in colonial Virginia who are socially prominent and wealthy, but not necessarily the earliest settlers. They descend from English colonists who primarily settled at Jamestown, Williamsburg, the Northern Neck and along the James River and other navigable waters in Virginia during the 17th century. These elite families generally married within their social class for many generations and, as a result, most surnames of First Families date to the colonial period.
Colonel Thomas Lee was a planter and politician in colonial Virginia, and a member of the Lee family, a political dynasty. Lee became involved in politics in 1710, serving in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, and also held important positions as Naval Officer for the Northern Potomac Region and agent for the Northern Neck Proprietary. After his father died, Lee inherited thousands of acres of land as well as enslaved people in then-vast Northumberland and Stafford Counties in Virginia as well as across the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland. These properties were developed as tobacco plantations. Northumberland County was later subdivided, so some of Lee's properties were in modern Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William and Loudoun Counties as well as the counties in the modern Northern Neck of Virginia.
Richard Bennett was an English planter and Governor of the Colony of Virginia, serving 1652–1655. He had first come to the Virginia colony in 1629 to represent his merchant uncle Edward Bennett's business, managing his plantation known as Bennett's Welcome in Warrascoyack. Two decades later, Bennett immigrated to the Maryland colony with his family, and settled on the Severn River in Anne Arundel County.
Laetitia "Lettice" Lee, also known as Lettice Lee Wardrop Thompson Sim, was an American colonial planter, society hostess, slaveowner, and châtelaine of Darnall's Chance. A member of the prominent Lee family of Virginia and Maryland, she lived a privileged life typical for members of the planter class. Unusual for her time, Lee was married three times; first to James Wardrop, then Adam Thompson, and lastly to Colonel Joseph Sim. She lived at Darnall's Chance for the second half of her life, throughout all three of her marriages.
Colonel John Tayloe II was the premier Virginia planter; a politician, and colonial Colonel in the Virginia Militia. Virginia. He served in public office including the Virginia Governor's Council, also known as the Virginia Council of State.
Col. John Tayloe I was one of the richest plantation owners and businessmen in Virginia for his generation. Considered to be the chief architect of the family fortune, he was known as the "Hon. Colonel of the Old House". The Tayloe family of Richmond County, Virginia, including John Tayloe I, his son, John Tayloe II, and grandson, John Tayloe III, exemplified gentry entrepreneurship diversifying business interests through vertical integration.
John Tayloe III, of Richmond County, Virginia, was the premier Virginia planter; a politician, businessman, and tidewater gentry scion. He was prominent in elite social circles. A highly successful planter and early Thoroughbred horse breeder, he was considered the "wealthiest man of his day". A military officer, he also served in the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia for nine years.
Henry Augustine Tayloe of Oakley Plantation, Essex County, Virginia, later Gallion, Canebrake, Alabama, was an American planter, slaveholder, horse breeder and racer, and land speculator in the 19th century.
Old Stock Americans, Pioneer Stock, or Colonial Stock, are Americans who are descended from the original settlers of the Thirteen Colonies. They were mainly white Protestants from Northern Europe, who emigrated to British America in the 17th and the 18th centuries.
The Washington family is an American family of English origins that was part of both the British landed gentry and the American gentry. It was prominent in colonial America and rose to great economic and political eminence especially in the Colony of Virginia as part of the planter class, owning several highly valued plantations, mostly making their money in tobacco farming. Members of the family include the first president of the United States, George Washington (1732–1799), and his nephew, Bushrod Washington (1762–1829), who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Henry Corbin was an emigrant from England who became a tobacco planter in the Virginia colony and served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, in the House of Burgesses representing Lancaster County before the creation of Middlesex County on Virginia's Middle Neck, then on the Governor's Council.
The planter class was a racial and socioeconomic caste which emerged in the Americas during European colonization in the early modern period. Members of the caste, most of whom were settlers of European descent, consisted of individuals who owned or were financially connected to plantations, large-scale farms devoted to the production of cash crops in high demand across Euro-American markets. These plantations were operated by the forced labour of slaves and indentured servants and typically existed in tropical climates, where the soil was fertile enough to handle the intensity of plantation agriculture. Cash crops produced on plantations owned by the planter class included tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. In North America, the planter class formed part of the American gentry.
Gawin Corbin (1669-1745) was a Virginia planter, militia officer, customs collector and politician who served in the House of Burgesses representing at various times Middlesex and King and Queen County. Two descendants of the same name would also serve in the House of Burgesses, Gawin Corbin Sr. and Gawin Corbin Jr.
