Founders, Planters & Burgesses of Colonial Virginia, 1607–1776 - 420 Biographical Entries | Searchable PDF

Discover the Lives Behind Colonial Virginia (1607–1776)

Published by Fairbairn's Crest, Founders, Planters & Burgesses of Colonial Virginia (1607–1776): A Biographical & Social Dictionary of Early Settlers, Colonial Governors, Councillors of State, Burgesses, and Prominent Plantation Families brings together 420 biographical entries tracing the men and women who planted, governed, and shaped Virginia from the landing at Jamestown in 1607 to the eve of independence in 1776. Synthesizing the colonial biographical registers of Dr. Lyon Gardiner Tyler's Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, Volume I (1915) with archival social history from Mary Newton Stanard's Colonial Virginia: Its People and Customs (1917), this 151-page searchable digital volume unites five separate historical divisions into one continuous A-to-Z reference work.

Origins, Plantation Life, Public Service & Family Networks

Rather than presenting bare lists of names, these collected biographies trace how English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and Huguenot emigrants—alongside pivotal Algonquian figures of the Powhatan Confederacy—built a complex provincial society across the Chesapeake Bay, the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac river basins, the Eastern Shore, the Piedmont, and the Shenandoah Valley. Readers can follow the transatlantic voyages of the Virginia Company of London, the struggles of the early Jamestown presidents and marshals, the rise of representative self-government in the House of Burgesses from July 1619, the turmoil of Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, and the domestic world of great Tidewater manor houses such as Corotoman, Westover, Rosewell, Rosegill, Bedford, Stratford Hall, Green Spring, Mount Airy, Gunston Hall, and Mount Vernon.

Across the collection, you will encounter figures ranging from maritime explorers and charter patrons—such as John and Sebastian Cabot, Reverend Richard Hakluyt, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Edwin Sandys, Nicholas Ferrar, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, and Admiral Christopher Newport—to colonial executives and lawmakers including Captain John Smith, John Rolfe, Pocahontas (Lady Rebecca), Sir William Berkeley, Robert "King" Carter, William Byrd II, Alexander Spotswood, Peyton Randolph, George Mason, and Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, as well as spirited colonial gentlewomen such as Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley Ludwell, Mistress Sarah Harrison Blair, Mistress Angelica Bray, Mistress Sarah Prescott Drummond, and Williamsburg school founder Mistress Mary Page Whaley.

What the Biographies Reveal

Because historical survival varies across seventeenth- and eighteenth-century county courts and parishes, the accounts are organized into three evidentiary tiers—detailed multi-paragraph narrative biographies for major founders, governors, councillors, clergymen, and plantation patriarchs and matriarchs; mid-length service sketches for multi-record burgesses, magistrates, physicians, and merchants; and concise record stubs for single-session burgesses and early patentees. Depending on the surviving documentary record, entries preserve:

• Transatlantic Origins & Migration: British and European counties or parishes of birth, university or Inns of Court education, and early voyage vessels to Jamestown and the Tidewater.
• Civil, Judicial & Legislative Careers: Service as Colonial President, Royal or Commonwealth Governor, Member of the Council of State, Speaker or Burgess in the General Assembly, County Justice, High Sheriff, or Parish Vestryman.
• Marriage Alliances & Kinship Ties: Spouses, parents, children, and multi-generational links across allied Virginia plantation families, together with seventeenth-century surname spelling variants.
• Estates, Wills, Libraries & Heraldry: Named plantation seats, headright land patents, county probate inventories, private book collections, and ancestral coats-of-arms documented on wax seals, silver plate, and tombstones.

What Is Included in This Edition

• 420 Alphabetical Biographical Entries (pp. 9–142): One continuous A-to-Z sequence from Abrahall to Zouch, with explicit source citations at the foot of every entry.
• 151-Page Searchable PDF Volume: Typeset in a clean 6" x 9" book layout with running headers and a two-pass page-numbered Table of Contents.
• Historical Introduction & Archival Essay (pp. 4–5): A four-part overview of the Virginia Company, the Council and House of Burgesses, plantation culture, and editorial methodology.
• Colonial County Gazetteer & Executive Rolls (pp. 5–8): Reference tables covering the eight original shires of 1634, all sixty-one counties formed through 1776 with their Anglican parishes, and the chronological roll of Colonial Presidents, Governors, and Speakers.
• Three Cumulative Back-of-Book Indexes (pp. 143–151): Page-numbered indexes of (1) Primary & Allied Surnames with 17th-century variant spellings, (2) Virginia Counties, Parishes, Plantations & British Origins, and (3) Colonial Offices, Ships & Institutions.

How to Use This Digital Volume

You can browse alphabetically by surname, consult the Table of Contents and the three back-of-book indexes by county, parish, plantation seat, ship, or office, or press Ctrl+F (Windows) or Cmd+F (Mac) to search instantly across all 151 pages for any surname, spouse, parish, or estate. Source citations at the end of each entry point directly to the underlying pages in Tyler (1915) and Stanard (1917) so family historians can follow promising leads into original county court order books, parish registers, and probate files. Researchers should always verify genealogical connections against primary county and parish manuscripts.

What You Are Purchasing

This listing is for the compiled 151-page digital book Founders, Planters & Burgesses of Colonial Virginia (1607–1776) in searchable PDF format. Original source books are not included. Digital download only. No physical book will be shipped.

People Featured in This Biographical Collection

Robert Abrahall (fl. 1650–1660 - New Kent County), Richard Adams (fl. 1726–1782 - Henrico County), Gerard Alexander (fl. 1752–1761 - Stafford County), Major Arthur Allen (fl. 1677–1749 - Surry County), Isaac Allerton (fl. 1630–1702 - Northumberland County), Reverend Robert Andrews (fl. 1654–1798 - Williamsburg), Sir Edmund Andros (fl. 1637–1713 - York County), Pamunkey Queen Anne (fl. 1676–1677 - Jamestown & Tidewater Virginia), Captain Gabriel Archer (fl. 1593–1610 - Jamestown), Sir Samuel Argall / alt. Argoll (fl. 1580–1641 - Warwick County), Captain Anthony Armistead (fl. 1676–1705 - Elizabeth City County), Colonel Henry Armistead (fl. 1685–1733 - Gloucester County), Colonel John Armistead (fl. 1676–1693 - Gloucester County), Robert Armistead (fl. 1726–1774 - Elizabeth City County), William Armistead (fl. 1673–1792 - Elizabeth City County), Colonel Henry Ashton (fl. 1671–1731 - Westmoreland County), Colonel Peter Ashton (fl. 1650–1660 - Charles City County), Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Aston (fl. 1560–1656 - Charles City County), Nathaniel Bacon Jr. (fl. 1647–1676 - Henrico County), Colonel Nathaniel Bacon Sr. (fl. 1620–1692 - York County), Major James Ball (fl. 1678–1754 - Lancaster County), Colonel Thomas Ballard (fl. 1630–1689 - James City County), Colonel William Bassett (fl. 1670–1723 - New Kent County), Arthur Bayley (fl. 1642–1658 - Henrico County), Governor Richard Bennett (fl. 1621–1675 - Nansemond County), Colonel Edmund Berkeley (fl. 1674–1718 - Middlesex County), John Berkeley (fl. 1619–1622 - Henrico County), Norborne Berkeley Fourth Baron de Botetourt (1717–1770 - Williamsburg), Governor Sir William Berkeley (fl. 1610–1677 - James City County), Colonel William Bernard (fl. 1598–1665 - Nansemond County), Admiral Sir John Berry (fl. 1672–1689 - James City County), Captain Harry Beverley (fl. 1700–1730 - Middlesex County), Speaker Peter Beverley (fl. 1668–1728 - Gloucester County), Major Robert Beverley (fl. 1663–1687 - Middlesex County), Beverley Randolph (fl. 1754–1776 - Henrico County), Colonel William Beverley / alt. Beverly (fl. 1696–1756 - Essex County), Captain Henry Bishop (fl. 1640–1663 - Surry County), Commissary James Blair D.D. (1655–1743 - Williamsburg), President John Blair Sr. (1687–1771 - Williamsburg), Mistress Sarah Harrison Blair (1670–1713 - Surry County & Williamsburg), Speaker Theodorick Bland (fl. 1629–1671 - Charles City County), Richard Bland (1710–1776 - Prince George County), Captain Edward Blaney (fl. 1621–1626 - Jamestown), Councillor Master Blewit (fl. 1620 - Jamestown), Dr. Laurence Bohun (fl. 1610–1621 - Jamestown), Colonel Robert Bolling (fl. 1646–1709 - Charles City County), Colonel Thomas Bowler (fl. 1663–1679 - Rappahannock County), Christopher Branch (fl. 1602–1682 - Henrico County), Councillor James Bray Sr. (fl. 1666–1691 - James City County), Mistress Angelica Bray (fl. 1665–1695 - Middle Plantation), Captain George Brent (fl. 1650–1699 - Stafford County), Colonel Giles Brent (fl. 1637–1671 - Stafford County), John Brewer (fl. 1629–1635 - Warwick County), Captain Edward Brewster (fl. 1609–1635 - Jamestown), Colonel Joseph Bridger (fl. 1628–1686 - Isle of Wight County), Major Robert Bristow (fl. 1643–1707 - Stafford County), Captain William Brocas (fl. 1637–1655 - Lancaster County), Colonel Lewis Burwell (1710–1756 - Gloucester County), Colonel William Byrd I (1652–1704 - Henrico County), Colonel William Byrd II of Westover (1674–1744 - Charles City County), Mistress Evelyn Byrd of Westover (1707–1737 - Charles City County), Dr. William Cabell (fl. 1699–1774 - Albemarle County), Colonel Joseph Cabell (fl. 1732–1776 - Buckingham County), Colonel William Cabell Jr. (fl. 1730–1776 - Amherst County), John Cabot / Giovanni Caboto (c. 1450–c. 1499 - Bristol & North America), Sebastian Cabot / Sebastiano Caboto (c. 1474–1557 - Bristol & London), Colonel Christopher Calthorpe (fl. 1622–1662 - York County), Captain William Capps (fl. 1619–1630 - Elizabeth City County), Major John Carlyle (fl. 1720–1780 - Fairfax County), Colonel George Carrington (fl. 1711–1785 - Cumberland County), Colonel Charles Carter of Cleve (fl. 1707–1764 - King George County), Colonel Edward Carter (fl. 1643–1682 - Nansemond County), Colonel John Carter Sr. (fl. 1624–1669 - Lancaster County), Secretary John Carter II (fl. 1696–1742 - Charles City County), Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall (1710–1778 - Richmond County), President Robert "King" Carter of Corotoman (1663–1732 - Lancaster County), Captain Henry Cary Sr. (fl. 1650–1720 - Warwick County), Henry Cary Jr. (fl. 1680–1749 - Chesterfield County), Colonel Miles Cary I (fl. 1620–1667 - Warwick County), Colonel Archibald Cary of Ampthill (1721–1787 - Chesterfield County), Councillor John Chandler (fl. 1636–1658