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.
John Washington was an English merchant,planter,politician and military officer. Born in Tring,Hertfordshire,he subsequently emigrated to the English colony of Virginia,where he became a planter. In addition to serving in the Virginia militia and owning several plantations operated using a combination of indentured and later enslaved labour,Washington also served for many years in the House of Burgesses,representing Westmoreland County. He was the first member of the Washington family who hailed originally from Northeast England to live in North America as well as the paternal great-grandfather of George Washington,the first president of the United States.
Col. Isaac Allerton Jr. was planter,military officer,politician and merchant in colonial America. Like his father,he first traded in New England,and after his father's death,in Virginia. There,he served on the Governor's Council (1687-1691) and for many years in the House of Burgesses,representing Northumberland County and later Westmoreland County.
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.
Major Robert Ellyson was a legislator,lawyer,military officer,and physician who served as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses representing the electoral constituency of James City County from 1655 to 1656 and from 1660 to 1665.
Richard Lee I was the first member of the Lee family to live in America. Poor when he arrived in Virginia in 1639 on a ship with the colony's newly reappointed governor and the woman who became his future wife,by the time of his death,Lee may have been both the Virginia Colony's wealthiest inhabitant as well as its largest landholder. Lee had a varied career,for in addition to several important government and military posts,he became a merchant,planter and politician who served one term in the Virginia House of Burgesses as well as managed to negotiate several major political upheavals—both successfully and to his economic advantage.
Colonel Nicholas Spencer,Jr. (1633–1689) was a merchant,planter and politician in colonial Virginia. Born in Cople,Bedfordshire,Spencer migrated to the Westmoreland County,Virginia,where he became a planter and which he represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Spencer later served as Secretary and President of the Council of the Virginia Colony,and on the departure of his cousin Thomas Colepeper,2nd Baron Colepeper in 1683,was named Acting Governor (1683–84),in which capacity Spencer served until the arrival of Governor Lord Howard of Effingham. Spencer's role as agent for the Culpepers helped him and his cousin Lt. Col. John Washington,ancestor of George Washington,secure the patent for their joint land grant of the Mount Vernon estate.
Lawrence Washington was a colonial-era Virginia planter,slave holder,lawyer,soldier and politician. He also was the paternal grandfather of George Washington.
Colonel Edward Hill was a Virginia planter,soldier and politician. In addition to representing Charles City County for many terms in the House of Burgesses,fellow members three times selected him as its Speaker,and he sat in the Virginia General Assembly's upper house,the Virginia Governor's Council in 1651 as well as from 1660-1663. Burgesses also sent Hill to Maryland to put down Richard Ingle's 1646 rebellion,and he acted as the colony's temporary governor before ceding to the proper governor,Leonard Calvert,but later contested nonpayment of monies promised to him and Virginia militia troops for that action. Col. Hill also led the Charles County and Henrico County militia and Pamunkey native Americans against other tribes in Hanover County in 1656,with less success.
George Mason I was the American progenitor of the prominent American landholding and political Mason family. Mason was the great-grandfather of George Mason IV,a Founding Father of the United States.
George Mason II (1660–1716) was an early American planter and officeholder who,although his father's only child,had many children and thus can be said to have established the Mason family as one of the First Families of Virginia. His grandson George Mason IV became the most distinguished member of the family,a Founding Father of the United States.
Francis Dade,was a Virginia soldier,politician and landowner. An English Royalist who emigrated to Virginia some time after the death of Charles I. In Virginia he officially used the name "John Smith" when he served as one of the two delegates representing tiny Warwick County and as Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1658. He died at sea in 1662 or 1663.
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.
Valentine Peyton (1687–1751),was a Virginia planter and military officer who served in the House of Burgesses representing Prince William County (part-time) from 1736 through 1740,as well as in local offices. As explained below,he was named for a great-uncle who emigrated to the Virginia colony and served as a burgess for then-vast Westmoreland County in 1663-64.
Mathew Kemp was a British attorney who emigrated from England to the Colony of Virginia where he became a government official,planter and politician. He supported Governor William Berkeley during Bacon's Rebellion and became Speaker of the House of Burgesses in 1679 before being elevated to the Virginia Governor's Council.
Peter Jenings (1630-1671) was a British attorney who emigrated to the Colony of Virginia,where he became a planter,served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and was the colony's attorney general. He twice represented Gloucester County in the House of Burgesses,as well as served on the Virginia Governor's Council probably for less than two years before his death.
Thomas Trueman was a British attorney who also became a merchant,planter,politician and controversial military officer in the Maryland Colony. He was impeached on one of three counts by the Upper House of the Maryland Assembly for killing several Susquehannock emissarys under a flag of truce months before Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. Trueman had served in both houses of the Maryland Assembly before that conflict,and although dismissed from the Governor's Council after that impeachment in 1676,he served another term in 1683-84.
John Pate (1632-1672) was a planter and politician who invested in land in and around Gloucester County and in his last years served on the Virginia Governor's Council.
Thomas Mathew was an English merchant who became a planter and politician in the Colony of Virginia. He owned property in Northumberland County and was one of the first burgesses representing Stafford County in the House of Burgesses when it was formed. An Indian raid which killed one of his herdsmen was a precursor of Bacon's Rebellion and shortly before his death in London Mathew wrote an account of that conflict which was published a century later.
Gerrard Foulke or Fowke(1626-October 15,1669) was an English merchant who became a planter,military officer and politician in the Colony of Virginia,then the Maryland Colony. He succeeded his brother and business partner Thomas Fowke and represented Westmoreland County in the House of Burgesses,before marrying a widow,moving to Port Tobacco,Maryland and representing Charles County in the Maryland Assembly.
