John Smith was an English soldier, slave, explorer, colonial governor, admiral of New England, and author. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in the early 17th century. He was a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, and he led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, during which he became the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area. Later, he explored and mapped the coast of New England. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, and his friend Mózes Székely.
Pocahontas was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a network of tributary tribes in the Tsenacommacah, encompassing the Tidewater region of what is today the U.S. state of Virginia.
Sir George Yeardley was a planter and colonial governor of the colony of Virginia. He was also among the first slaveowners in Colonial America. A survivor of the Virginia Company of London's ill-fated Third Supply Mission, whose flagship, the Sea Venture, was shipwrecked on Bermuda for ten months from 1609 to 1610, he is best remembered for presiding over the initial session of the first representative legislative body in Virginia in 1619. With representatives from throughout the settled portion of the colony, the group became known as the House of Burgesses. It has met continuously since, and is known in modern times as the Virginia General Assembly. Yeardley died in 1627.
"Ancient planter" was a term applied to early colonists who migrated to the Colony of Virginia in what is now the United States, when the colony was managed by the Virginia Company of London. They received land grants if they stayed in the colony for at least three years. Under the terms of the "Instructions to Governor Yeardley", these colonists received the first land grants in Virginia.
Samuel Jordan was an early settler and Ancient Planter of colonial Jamestown. He arrived in Virginia around 1610, and served as a Burgess in the first representative legislative session in North America. Jordan patented a plantation which he called "Beggar's Bush", which later became known as Jordan's Journey. It became a safe haven and stronghold for settlers during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War that ensued after the Powhatan surprise attack of 1622.
Thomas Graves was one of the original Adventurers (stockholders) of the Virginia Company of London, and one of the very early Planters (settlers) who founded Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America. He was also the first known person named Graves in North America. Captain Thomas Graves is listed as one of the original Adventurers as "Thomas Grave" on page 364, Records of the Virginia Company of London, vol. IV.
Captain Raleigh Croshaw or Crashaw was an English merchant and early immigrant to the Colony and Dominion of Virginia who represented Elizabeth City County in the House of Burgesses in 1624.
The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles is a book written by Captain John Smith, first published in 1624. The book is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, histories of the territory administered by the London Company.
Richard Pace was an early settler and Ancient Planter of Colonial Jamestown, Virginia. According to a 1622 account published by the London Company, Richard Pace played a key role in warning the Jamestown colony of an impending Powahatan raid on the colony.
The Jamestown Polish craftsmen's strike of 1619 took place in the settlement of Jamestown in the Virginia colony. It was the first documented strike in North America. Skilled craftsmen were sent by the Virginia Company to Jamestown to produce pitch, tar, and turpentine used for shipbuilding. When the colony held its first election in 1619, many settlers were not allowed to vote on the grounds that they were not of English descent, and they went on strike. Due to the importance of the skilled workers in producing valuable naval stores for the colony, company leaders bowed to labor pressure and gave full voting rights to continental workers.
Thomas Forrest, Esq, also known as Thomas Forrest, Gentleman, in the Jamestown Colonists historic lists, was a gentleman financier in the Virginia Company. At that time, "gentleman" denoted a man of the lowest rank of the English gentry, standing below an esquire and above a yeoman. By definition, this category included the younger sons of the younger sons of peers, knights, and esquires in perpetual succession; thus the term captures the common denominator of gentility shared by both constituents of the English aristocracy: the peerage and the gentry.
The Cecily Jordan v. Greville Pooley dispute was the first known prosecution for breach of promise in colonial America and the first in which the defendant was a woman. This case was tried in the chambers of the Virginia Company, and never went to a civil court, for the plaintiff withdrew his complaint. The first successful case was Stretch v. Parker in 1639.
Richard Cocke (1597–1665) was a prominent colonial Virginia planter and politician. He established a political and social dynasty that firmly seated itself as among the most prominent in Virginia. Among his more prominent descendants are George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, as well as professional baseball player Ryne Harper.
Reverend Richard Buck was a minister to the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown, Virginia from 1610 to 1624. He was chaplain of the first session of the Virginia General Assembly, which was composed of the House of Burgesses and the Virginia Governor's Council. This assembly met in the church at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, as the first elected assembly and law making body in colonial America.
Mistress Forrest and her maid servant Anne Burras, were the first two European women to come to the Virginia Colony. Arriving on October 1, 1608, in what is known as the Second Supply aboard the English ship the Mary and Margaret under Captain Christopher Newport to resupply the colony at Jamestown, Virginia. Her husband Thomas Forrest (colonist) Esq. was listed as a gentleman on that ship as shown on its manifest, whereas she was listed only as Mistress Forrest. Thomas and Margaret had married on August 16, 1605, in St. Giles in the Fields, London, England.
William Farrar was a landowner and politician in colonial Virginia. He was a subscriber to the third charter of the Virginia Company who immigrated to the colony from England in 1618. After surviving the Jamestown massacre of 1622, he moved to Jordan's Journey. In the following year, Farrar became involved in North America's first breach of promise suit when he proposed to Cecily Jordan.
Cecily Jordan Farrar was one of the earlier women settlers of colonial Jamestown, Virginia. She arrived in the colony as a child in 1610 and was established as one of the few female ancient planters by 1620. After her husband Samuel Jordan died in 1623, Cecily obtained oversight of his 450-acre plantation, Jordan's Journey. In the Jamestown Muster of 1624-1625, she is one of fewer than 10 women who are mentioned as a head of household, and the only woman listed as sharing the head of household with a man she was not married to. In the year of Samuel Jordan's death, she set off the first breach of promise lawsuit in English North America when she chose the marriage proposal of William Farrar, who was bonded to help settle her estate, over that of Greville Pooley, who claimed his proposal had already been accepted. In 1625, Cecily prevailed when Pooley withdrew his claim. Afterward, she married William Farrar.
William Spence was an early Virginia colonist on Jamestown Island. He was member of the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Spence became an ensign in the local militia and is thus sometimes identified as Ensign William Spence or Ensign Spence. He was an early farmer on Jamestown Island, a tobacco taster and landowner at Archer's Hope. He, his wife and his young daughter, Sara, or Sarah, avoided the Indian massacre of 1622, but Spence and his wife were reported "lost" at the census of February 16, 1624.
William Spencer was an early Virginia colonist on Jamestown Island, who was an Ancient planter and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Jamestown, Virginia for Mulberry Island in 1632/33.
Robert Beheathland,(or Behethland), born before 1587 in St Endellion, Cornwall, England, was an English gentleman who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 aboard one of the three founding ships, likely the Susan Constant. He is noteworthy as the only original 1607 Jamestown colonist having documented descendants living today.
