Related Research Articles
The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established in 1619, became a bicameral institution.
The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606, with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Maine to the Carolinas. The company's shareholders were Londoners, and it was distinguished from the Plymouth Company, which was chartered at the same time and composed largely of gentlemen from Plymouth, England.
Roger Delk was a representative for Stanley's Hundred in the House of Burgesses.
Sir George Yeardley (1587–1627) 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.
Middle Plantation in the Virginia Colony was the unincorporated town established in 1632 that became Williamsburg in 1699. It was located on high ground about halfway across the Virginia Peninsula between the James River and York River. Middle Plantation represented the first major inland settlement for the colony. It was established by an Act of Assembly to provide a link between Jamestown and Chiskiack, a settlement located across the Peninsula on the York River.
The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbered years. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House, who is elected from among the House membership by the Delegates. The Speaker is usually a member of the majority party and, as Speaker, becomes the most powerful member of the House. The House shares legislative power with the Senate of Virginia, the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The House of Delegates is the modern-day successor to the Virginia House of Burgesses, which first met at Jamestown in 1619. The House is divided into Democratic and Republican caucuses. In addition to the Speaker, there is a majority leader, majority whip, majority caucus chair, minority leader, minority whip, minority caucus chair, and the chairs of the several committees of the House.
The Capitol at Williamsburg, Virginia housed both Houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the Council of State and the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia from 1705, when the capital was relocated there from Jamestown, until 1780, when the capital was relocated to Richmond. Two capitol buildings served the colony on the same site: the first from 1705 until its destruction by fire in 1747; the second from 1753 to 1780.
Francis West was a Deputy Governor of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia.
Philip Cottington Ludwell was a British colonial soldier and official who served on the Virginia Governor's Council of State and briefly as Speaker of the House of Burgessess, as well as operated plantations in Virginia using enslaved labor. He also served as the first governor of the Carolinas, during the colony's transition from proprietary rule to royal colony.
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.
William Capps was born in Norfolk, England in or around 1575. William married Catherine Jernagin in Norwich, Norfolk, England, 11-Dec-1596, at St. Michael at Plea. He and his wife had five children together: Henry, Frances, Willoughby, Anne, and William.
Walter Shelley sailed to the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia before 1619.
Jamestown, also Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as the capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg. This article covers the history of the fort and town at Jamestown proper, as well as colony-wide trends resulting from and affecting the town during the time period in which it was the colonial capital of Virginia.
William Powell, was an early Virginia colonist, landowner, militia officer and member of the first Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619. He was one of the two representatives of James City County, Virginia.
The Governor's Council was the upper house of the colonial legislature in the Colony of Virginia from 1607 until the American Revolution in 1776. Consisting of 12 men who, after the 1630s were appointed by the British Sovereign, the Governor's Council also served as an advisory body to the Virginia Royal Governor and as the highest judicial body in the colony.
Rice Hooe was the name of three Virginia colonists, two of whom served in the colonial House of Burgesses, and became ancestors of a family of planters important in northern Virginia and southern Maryland. Their descendants Alexander Hooe, Bernard Hooe Jr., James Hooe, two named John Hooe as well as John Hooe Jr., and William Hooe would all serve in the Virginia General Assembly before the American Civil War.
Samuel Sharpe, sometimes referred to as Samuel Sharp was an early Virginia colonist who settled in the area that became Charles City County, Virginia. He came to Virginia in 1610 with most of the passengers and crew of the Sea Venture as they made their way to the colony after 10 months in Bermuda. They had wrecked in a storm there and built two small boats to complete their journey to Jamestown. Along with Samuel Jordan, he represented Charles City as a burgess in the first general assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. He was a representative for Westover, an incorporation of Charles City, in the 1623/24 assembly and signed a letter along with several burgesses at the time of that assembly.
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 Sharpe was an early Virginia colonist, soldier, ancient planter, and Virginia Company shareholder who settled in the Bermuda Hundred area that became part of Charles City County, Virginia. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses in Jamestown, Virginia in 1629.
John Pollington was an early Virginia colonist who was a member of the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 for the "Citie" of Henricus, Virginia. In 1624, he was a burgess for Warrosquyoake Shire sometimes shown as Warresqueak and other variations, now Isle of Wight County, Virginia. He also was a landowner and merchant.