Samuel Sharpe (burgess)

Last updated
Samuel Sharpe
Member Virginia House of Burgesses
In office
1619–1623/24
Personal details
Born England
Diedunknown
SpouseElizabeth
Residence Charles City County, Virginia
Occupation Ancient planter, Burgess

Samuel Sharpe, sometimes referred to as Samuel Sharp or "Ssamuel" [1] 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. [2] 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.

Contents

Sharpe and his wife, Elizabeth, survived the Indian massacre of 1622. He became a landowner and planter. His life and fate after he returned to England, presumably temporarily, on business in 1626 is unknown.

Samuel Sharpe should not be confused with William Sharpe (Sergeant Sharp(e)), another early Virginia colonist and member of the House of Burgesses in 1629 with whom he is sometimes erroneously conflated. [3] [4]

On the Sea Venture and Bermuda

Sharpe was among the passengers who were cast away on Bermuda when the Sea Venture was shipwrecked there on its way to the Colony of Virginia with additional supplies, colonists and the new governor, Sir Thomas Gates in 1609. On Bermuda, Sharpe, along with Humphrey (or Humfrey) Reed (or Reade), reported the proposed mutiny of Stephen Hopkins, later a passenger on the Mayflower to Plymouth Colony, to Governor Gates, one of the shipwrecked passengers. Hopkins believed the wreck ended the authority of the ship's captain, Captain Christopher Newport and the accompanying Sir George Somers, admiral of the Virginia Company of London. He also thought that Gates had no authority until the passengers reached Jamestown. Hopkins wanted to stay on Bermuda where food was available rather than continue to Virginia where he, and others, believed scarcity and danger awaited. Sharpe and Reed testified before an assembly of passengers to what Hopkins had told them about his plans. Although Gates sentenced Hopkins to be executed, he acceded to the requests of Newport and writer and later Secretary of the Colony William Strachey to pardon Hopkins. [5] [6] [7] The passengers and crew of the Sea Venture built two small ships, the Patience and the Deliverance and ultimately arrived at Jamestown on May 24, 1610. [8]

Burgess

In 1619, Samuel Sharpe represented Charles City (sometimes referred to as Bermuda City) at the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses. [2] [9]

McIlwaine, H. R., ed. Volume 1 of Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1619 - 1658/59. Richmond, VA, 1915, p. viii shows Sharpe as the representative for Westover, an incorporation of Charles City in the 1623/24 assembly. [10] [note 1]

Elizabeth Sharpe

Elizabeth Sharpe, the wife of Samuel Sharpe, arrived in Virginia on the Margaret and John in 1621. [5] She is known to have been living with Samuel at Flowerdew Hundred at the census date of January 20, 1625. [5] She should not be confused with the wife of William Sharpe, also named Elizabeth. [11]

Indian massacre of 1622 and aftermath

On March 22, 1622, Chief Opchanacanough and warriors of his Powhatan Confederacy attacked the Virginia colonists, killing at least 347 people, a quarter of the population of the Virginia colony, in the Indian massacre of 1622. [12] Samuel Sharpe helped inventory the estate of George Thorpe of Berkeley Hundred who had been killed during the attack. [5] Thorpe was a deputy to the then governor, George Yeardley. [note 2]

After the 1622 attack, the Virginia colony continued to suffer from inadequate diet due to the loss of many men before the 1622 planting season, disease and further Native American raids, which resulted in men being diverted from work in the fields to guard duty. [13] Sharpe sent a letter back to England in March or April 1623, according to David A. Price, on March 24, 1622 according to Martha W. McCartney, in which he wrote: "To write of all crosses and miseries which have befallen us at ths time we are not able: The Lord hath crossed us by stricking most of us with sickness and death." [5] [13] Sharpe noted that the sickness and death in the colony made it difficult for anyone to plant crops or conduct business. [5] He declared that most of the men who arrived on the Abigail had died, including George Paul, whose help he had sought from Governor Yeardley. [5] On the other hand, in 1624, Sharpe and other burgesses signed a rebuttal to Alderman [Robert] Johnson's statement that in contrast to the current dire state of the Virginia colony, the conditions in the colony were good before 1619. [5] [14] [15]

Wife and property

Records showed that Sharpe and his wife Elizabeth were living at Flowerdew Hundred Plantation on February 16, 1624 and were still there on January 20, 1625. [5] In a list of patented land sent to England in 1625, Sharpe was shown with 100 acres on the Appomattox River. [5] In 1625, Sharpe and merchant Edward Blaney (burgess), a burgess for James City in 1623 and 1624, [16] disagreed about ownership of some cattle. [5] Some residents claimed that some of Blaney's cattle belonged to the Virginia Company. [17] Late in 1625, Richard Biggs of West and Shirley Hundred, later Shirley Plantation, named Sharpe as overseer of his estate. [5]

Business trip to England

Sharpe returned to England on the Temperance in 1626 to attend to the presentation of Bigg's estate for probate. [5] In July 1626, having been identified as a gentleman, Sharpe and others testified that their goods and tobacco had been wrongfully detained at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, England because of a dispute between the ship's master of the Temperance' and its owner. [5]

Further life unknown

A burgess identified as "Sergeant Sharp" (no first name, no "e" at the end of the name) is listed as a burgess for the "Neck of Land" for the 1629 session in both Stanard and Hening. [18] [19] "Sergeant Sharp" was "William G. Sharpe (Sharp)", also of Charles City, and a burgess in the 1629 list for the Neck of Land. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, has a brief biographical paragraph concerning "Samuel Sharpe" which identifies him as a burgess for Charles City in the 1619 session and the Neck of Land in the October 1625 session. [20] A 1625 session, called a "convention," is not shown in Stanard or Henings or the McCartney Sharpe (Sharp) entries but is mentioned in Grizzard. [21] McIlwane lists neither Samuel Sharpe nor William Sharpe as members of the 1625 convention. [22]

Tyler gives no further information about Sharpe after 1625. Based on McCartney which has no information about Samuel Sharpe after 1626, [5] and Grizzard which shows the members of the First General Assembly and their fates if known and which indicates that Samuel Sharpe's fate is unknown, [23] Samuel Sharpe was not the "Sergeant Sharp" of the 1629 assembly. That burgess was William Sharpe (Sharp), as stated by McCartney with citations. [5] Also, Lists of the Livinge & the Dead in Virginia, compiled February 16, 1623, shows "Serjeant William Sharpe" residing at the Neck of Land. [24]

None of the references found for this page give further information about Samuel Sharpe after 1626 such as whether or when he returned to Virginia and his date of death.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In Stanard 1902, p. 52, Wirt, 1894, p. 60 and Grizzard, Frank E. and Dennis Boyd Smith. Jamestown Colony: A Political, Social and Cultural History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007. ISBN   978-1-85109-637-4. p. 419, Samuel Sharpe (not shown as "Sergeant") is listed as a burgess in the 1619 general assembly for Charles City. He signed the letter of burgesses replying to Alderman Robert Johnson in 1624, as shown by McCartney, 2007, p. 631. His name is not shown by Stanard in the list of burgesses for the 1624 session but he is listed as the representative for Westover, an incorporation of Charles City, in the 1623/24 session by McIlwane as cited in the text.
  2. ↑ Thorpe was a "deputy for the college lands." He had sympathy for the Native Americans and as deputy to Governor Yeardley allowed them access to the colonists' villages. He disciplined subordinates who gave them offense. He tried to convince Opechancanough to send Powhatan boys to receive an English education in the colony. Despite Thorpe's trust and hope that the Powhatans would convert to Christianity, Opechancanough carried out the fatal attack in which Thorpe and many other colonists were killed and Thorpe's corpse was desecrated. Price, David A. Love & Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas and the Start of a New Nation. New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2003. ISBN   978-1-4000-3172-6. pp. 201-208. McCartney, 2007, p. 693.

Citations

  1. ↑ Deetz, James. Flowerdew Hundred: The Archaeology of a Virginia Plantation, 1619-1864. United Kingdom, University Press of Virginia, 1995.
  2. 1 2 Stanard, William G. and Mary Newton Stanard. The Virginia Colonial Register. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell's Sons Publishers, 1902. OCLC   253261475, Retrieved July 15, 2011. p. 52.
  3. ↑ See separate entries for Samuel Sharpe and William Sharpe at McCartney, Martha W. Virginia immigrants and adventurers, 1607-1635: a biographical dictionary. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2007. ISBN   978-0-8063-1774-8. p. 631.
  4. ↑ Lists of the Livinge & the Dead in Virginia, compiled February 16, 1623, as transcribed in Walker, R. F., Colonial Records of Virginia R.F. Walker, Superintendent Public Printing, Richmond, VA: Clemmitt & Jones, Printers, 1874, pp 37 – 68 shows "Serjeant William Sharpe" residing at the Neck of Land.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 McCartney, Martha W. Virginia immigrants and adventurers, 1607-1635: a biographical dictionary. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2007. ISBN   978-0-8063-1774-8. p. 631.
  6. ↑ Glover, Lorri and Daniel Blake Smith. The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America]. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2008. ISBN   978-0-8050-9025-3. Retrieved May 5, 2013. pp. 161-163.
  7. ↑ Bernhard, Virginia. The Tale of Two Colonies: What Really Happened in Virginia and Bermuda?. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011. ISBN   978-0-8262-1951-0. pp. 87-88.
  8. ↑ Glover, 2008, p. 189.
  9. ↑ Henry, William Wirt. The First Legislative Assembly in America. In Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1894. OCLC   1150082. Retrieved July 21, 2011. p. 60.
  10. ↑ This listing is based on Brown, Alexander. The First Republic in America, pp. 579, 580, rather than Stanard or a document from the House of Burgesses itself.
  11. ↑ McCartney, 2007, p. 632.
  12. ↑ Price, David A. Love & Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas and the Start of a New Nation. New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2003. ISBN   978-1-4000-3172-6. p. 208.
  13. 1 2 Price, 2003, p. 216.
  14. ↑ McCartney, 2007, p. 135.
  15. ↑ Haile, Edward Wright, ed. Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony: The First Decade: 1607-1617. Champlain, VA: RoundHouse, 1998. ISBN   978-0-9664712-0-5. pp. 912-916.
  16. ↑ McCartney, 2007, p. 139.
  17. ↑ McCartney, 2007, p. 140.
  18. ↑ Stanard, 1902, p. 53
  19. ↑ Henings, Statutes at Large, shown as Virginia, William Waller Hening, Virginia (Colony). The statutes at large: being a collection of all the laws of Virginia. Volume 1, Richmond, VA: Printed by and for Samuel Pleasants, Junior, printer to the Commonwealth, 1809-1823. OCLC   15444366. Retrieved July 15, 2011. p. 138.
  20. ↑ Tyler, Lyon Gardiner Sharpe, Samuel in Encyclopedia of Virginia biography. New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1915. OCLC   866770546. Retrieved July 21, 2011. p. 322.
  21. ↑ Grizzard, Frank E. and Dennis Boyd Smith. Jamestown Colony: A Political, Social and Cultural History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007. ISBN   978-1-85109-637-4. p. xlvi.
  22. ↑ McIlwaine, H. R., ed. Volume 1 of Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1619 - 1658/59. Richmond, VA, 1915, p. ix.
  23. ↑ Grizzard, p. 419.
  24. ↑ Transcribed in Walker, R. F., Colonial Records of Virginia R.F. Walker, Superintendent Public Printing, Richmond, VA: Clemmitt & Jones, Printers, 1874, pp 37 – 68

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of Burgesses</span> Representative assembly in colonial Virginia

The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Ludwell</span> Colonial official, planter and soldier

Philip Cottington Ludwell was an English-born planter and politician in colonial Virginia who sat on the Virginia Governor's Council, the first of three generations of men with the same name to do so, and briefly served as speaker of the House of Burgesses. In addition to operating plantations in Virginia using enslaved labor, Ludwell also served as the first governor of the Carolinas, during the colony's transition from proprietary rule to royal colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City of Henrico (Virginia Company)</span>

The City of Henrico is one of the oldest counties in the Colony of Virginia. It was one of four incorporations established in the colony by its proprietor, the Virginia Company. The City of Henrico, which included the settlement of Henricus, was the furthest incorporation upstream on the James River. In 1634, Henrico was reorganized under royal authority as the shire of Henrico, one of eight shires in the Crown Colony of Virginia, Later, it became known as Henrico County, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jordan Point, Virginia</span> Unincorporated community in Virginia, United States

Jordan Point is a small unincorporated community on the south bank of the James River in the northern portion of Prince George County, Virginia, United States. It is about 20 miles from Richmond and 30 miles upstream from Jamestown on the James River. It was the location of extensive archeological research between 1987 and 1993. This research provided substantial information about human existence in the area from the prehistoric to the late colonial eras. In particular, the research extensively studied the Jordan's Journey settlement that existed between 1620 and 1640 during early years of the Virginia colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Jamestown, Virginia (1607–1699)</span>

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.

Temperance Flowerdew, Lady Yeardley was an early settler of the Jamestown Colony and a key member of the Flowerdew family, significant participants in the history of Jamestown. Temperance Flowerdew was wife of two Governors of Virginia, sister of another early colonist, aunt to a representative at the first General Assembly and "cousin-german" to the Secretary to the Colony.

William Powell, was an early Virginia colonist, landowner, militia officer and legislator. Considered an ancient planter for living in the Virginia colony during its first decade, he was one of two representatives from what became James City County, Virginia in the first Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619. His former plantation, now across the James River in Surry County, Virginia is now within Chippokes State Park.

Ensign Washer or Ensign Thos (Thomas) Washer was an early Virginia colonist who settled in the area that became Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Washer and Christopher Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation as burgesses in the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the lower house of the colonial Virginia General Assembly, in 1619.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Buck (chaplain)</span> US colonial Virginia minister 1610–1624

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Farrar (settler)</span> Early settler, member of the Virginia Council, and Commissioner in the Virginia colony

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 ten women 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.

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.

Edmund Rossingham was the nephew of and factor or agent for Sir George Yeardley, who was Governor of the Colony of Virginia, three times between November 1616 and November 1627, and his wife Temperance Flowerdew. Rossingham was a member of the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 for Flowerdew Hundred Plantation, Yeardley's plantation.

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.

Robert Stacy was a colonist and politician in the Colony of Virginia who briefly served as one of the 22 members of the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619.

William Peirce, emigrated with his family to the new Colony of Virginia, where he became a valued soldier, as well as a planter, merchant and politician. Although Peirce fought in several skirmishes with Native Americans and served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly as well as helped topple governor John Harvey, today he may best be known as one of the first slave owners in the colony.

Otto Thorpe or Thorp(1630-winter of 1696/1697) was an English merchant who became a militia officer and politician of Middle Plantation in the Colony of Virginia. His home was commandeered during Bacon's Rebellion, and in April 1682, Thorpe briefly represented York County in the House of Burgesses, before returning to England, where he died more than a decade later.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.