Dudley Digges | |
---|---|
Member of the House of Burgesses for York County, Colony of Virginia | |
In office 1752-1776 | |
Preceded by | Edward Digges |
Succeeded by | position abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | 1728 E.D. plantation,York County,Virginia,Colony of Virginia |
Died | June 3,1790 Yorktown,Virginia |
Spouse(s) | Martha Armistead Elizabeth Wormeley |
Parent(s) | Cole Digges (burgess),Elizabeth Power |
Education | College of William &Mary |
Occupation | attorney,planter,politician |
Dudley Digges (1728-June 3,1790) (or before 1736-Mary 3,1790) [1] was a Virginia attorney,planter,military officer and politician who served in the House of Burgesses (1752-1776) and all the Virginia Revolutionary conventions representing York County. Possibly the most famous of three related men of the same name who served in the Virginia legislature during the 18th century,this man was the third son of Yorktown merchant Cole Digges who served in both houses of the Virginia legislature. [2]
The third son born to the former Elizabeth Foliott Power and her husband Cole Digges,he was born in late 1728 or early 1729 at Yorktown,in a house his father had built after purchasing the no. 42 lot in 1713,and which remained in the Digges family until 1784,when this man sold it to David Jameson. [3] [4]
His great-grandfather Edward Digges had established the E.D. plantation (later renamed Bellfield) in York County,where his father was born. He had at least two elder sisters who married into the prominent Harrison family,and elder brothers Edward Digges (who as first born son inherited the Belfield plantation and began representing York County in the House of Burgesses in 1736 but moved to Stafford County) and William Digges (who represented nearby Warwick County as had their father before his elevation to the Council of State). This Digges received a private education appropriate to his class,including studies at the College of William and Mary. [2]
This Dudley Digges married twice. His first wife,the former Martha Burwell Armistead bore at least a son,Cole Armistead Digges (born Dec. 31,1748-and who married Mary Allen) and a daughter,Martha Armistead ("Patsy") Digges,who survived to married Capt. Nathaniel Burwell. [5] He remarried in 1760 to Elizabeth Wormeley (1737-1785),the daughter of prominent landowner Ralph Wormeley of Rosegill plantation,who was on the Virginia Governor's Council with this man's father. They had a son Dudley Wormeley Digges (1765-1839) who moved to Louisa County,as well as daughters Elizabeth Wormeley Digges (who married Dr. Robert Nicholson of Yorktown),Mary Wormeley Digges (who married her cousin Dudley Digges),Lucy Wormeley Digges (who married John Stratton) and Judith Wormeley Digges (who married merchant Andrew Nicholson and moved to Richmond where she died in 1849). [6]
Following admission to the local bar,Digges practiced law. [2] His father and elder sister Mary (who had married Nathaniel Harrison of Brandon plantation in Prince George County) both died in 1744. [7]
In 1749,Digges received his first government position in York County,which includes part of the town of Williamsburg (the other part of the colonial capital is in James City County). In that year Digges became colonel of horse and foot,the local militia which included cavalry and infantry. He also became the county's receiver of military fines. [2] In 1763,he became the county lieutenant. [8]
In 1752,York County voters elected him to replace his brother Edward Digges as one of their representatives in the House of Burgesses,alongside merchant John Norton,who had replaced Yorktown merchant and planter Thomas Nelson when that merchant was elevated to the Council of State (the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly). Digges repeatedly won re-election until the last Virginia colonial governor,Lord Dunmore,dismissed the assembly in 1776. Robert Carter Nicholas replaced Norton in the legislative session which began in 1756 and Thomas Nelson Jr. replaced Nicholas as the other York County burgess in 1761,and both he and Digges then continued to win re-election. [9] Digges and Thomas Nelson Jr. represented York County during all five Virginia Revolutionary conventions,from the first session (which began on August 1,1774) until Nelson's election to the Continental Congress in 1776,when William Digges Jr. replaced Nelson. [10]
By 1773,Digges was a member of the committee of correspondence between the Virginia legislature and those of other counties,alongside Thomas Jefferson,Patrick Henry,Peyton Randolph,Benjamin Harrison,Dabney Carr,Edmund Pendleton,Archibald Cary,Richard Bland,Robert Nicholas and Richard Henry Lee. [11] In 1775 was a member of the York County Committee of Safety. [2]
Fellow legislators elected Digges to the Revolutionary governor's council,and he was elected lieutenant governor while Thomas Nelson Jr. served as governor during the conflict. However,days before he was to ascend to that office,on June 4,1781,British raiders captured Digges in Charlottesville. Furthermore,his Yorktown house was heavily damaged during the Siege of Yorktown,making it uninhabitable,so he moved to Williamsburg but also ended his political career. [12]
In the 1788 Williamsburg city tax list,Digges (Diggs) paid taxes on twelve enslaved people and three horses,and his cousin Maria (daughter of his lawyerly uncle Dudley Digges Jr.) owned one slave. [13] By 1787 he also owned 36 adult slaves,41 enslaved teenagers,9 horses and 62 cattle in still-developing Louisa County,Virginia. [14]
According to various accounts,Digges died in Yorktown,Virginia on May 13,1790 [15] [8] or the town of Williamsburg on June 3,1790 (which now seems likely a memorial service). [2] Abington Episcopal Church displays a memorial epitaph. His house in Yorktown and several outbuildings were restored c. 1925 by Mrs. Carroll Paul,formerly of Marquette,Michigan, [11] and in 1960 the National Park Service further restored this man's Yorktown house (which he built c. 1760) (and restored the outbuildings in the 1970s). [16] The Dudley Digges house in Williamsburg was a school that taught both enslaved and free Black children,and may be named to honor this man or his lawyerly uncle Dudley Digges Jr. whose daughter Maria taught there. [17] However,the last will and testament does not survive for either man.
Thomas Nelson Jr. was a Founding Father of the United States,general in the Revolutionary War,member of the Continental Congress,and a Virginia planter. In addition to serving many terms in the Virginia General Assembly,he twice represented Virginia in the Congress,where he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Fellow Virginia legislators elected him to serve as the commonwealth's governor in 1781,the same year he fought as a brigadier general in the siege of Yorktown,the final battle of the war.
Edward Digges was an English barrister and colonist who became a premium tobacco planter and official in the Virginia colony. The son of the English politician Dudley Digges represented the colony before the Virginia Company of London and the royal government,as well as served for two decades on the colony's Council of State. Digges served as interim Colonial Governor of Virginia from March 1655 to December 1656,and for longer periods as the colony's receiver general and auditor-general. He is also known for planting mulberry trees and promoting the silk industry in the colony.
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Ralph Wormeley was a Virginia planter who served as a member of the Governor's Advisory Council (1771-1775),was suspected of being a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War,and after the conflict represented Middlesex County,Virginia in the Virginia House of Delegates (1788-1791) as well as at the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788,where he voted in favor of ratification of the federal Constitution.
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Dudley Digges (1665–1711) was a Virginia merchant,planter and politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly,as well as agent of the Royal African Company and factor for British merchants John Jeffreys and Micajah Perry Sr. After his marriage,Digges twice represented Warwick County in the House of Burgesses before being appointed to the Virginia Governor's Council in 1698. Digges also served as auditor and surveyor-general of Virginia from 1705 until his death,and purchased the E.D. Plantation where he had been born from his nephew Edward upon the death of his brother William in Maryland. That property,renamed Bellfield plantation,is now part of Naval Weapons Station Yorktown. His sons Cole and Dudley Digges Jr. would also continue the family's planter and political traditions.
Dudley Digges (1694–1768) was a Virginia attorney,merchant,planter and politician who served in the House of Burgesses representing the newly created Goochland County (1730–1732). Possibly the least known of three related men of the same name who served in the Virginia legislature during the 18th century,this man was the son of Dudley Digges Sr. who served in both houses of the Virginia legislature and bought the family's historic E.D. plantation in York County from his cousin. Geneologist John Frederick Dorman found that although this Dudley Digges was appointed a justice of the peace in Goochland County in 1735,three years later he bought 600 acres and moved back to James City County.
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William Digges was a planter and politician in the Colony of Virginia,who represented Warwick County,Virginia in the House of Burgesses from 1752 until 1771.
Edward Digges was a Virginia merchant,planter and politician who represented York County in the House of Burgesses.
William Digges was a Virginia planter and politician who represented now-defunct Warwick County,in the Virginia House of Delegates (1778-1784) and during the Virginia Ratification Convention of 1788. Although genealogists disagree as to his father,he was the grandson of Cole Digges who helped found Yorktown. The other two related men of the same name were his uncle and father in law William Digges who represented Warwick County for decades before the Revolutionary War,and great uncle William Digges who represented York County before moving to Maryland and serving in both house of that province's legislature. Because this man married his cousin,and the naming conventions of the day did not restrict "Jr" to a son,this man appears to be the William Digges Jr. who represented York County in the final Virginia Convention alongside his uncle Dudley Digges,and then in the first session of the Virginia House of Delegates where he joined Corbin Griffin,before his Warwick County inheritance.
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Edward Harwood was a planter,justice of the peace,military officer and politician who represented Warwick County in the Virginia House of Delegates.