THE BURGESSES IN COLONIAL AMERICA

The Northern Neck slides determinedly into the cold waters of Chesapeake Bay, flanked on one side by the huge snake of the Potomac River and on the southern bank by the smaller, more placid Rappahannock River.  To the early settlers it must have seemed a green oasis floating amidst the waters.  This long peninsula was settled in the 1640s and '50s by predominantly English farmers, who within a generation had driven away, conquered, or overwhelmed the indigenous native populations with superior firepower and disease.  The flanks of this fertile strip of land were quickly cleared of brush and trees, and a variety of crops planted.  By the 1680s tobacco was king, being the one product that could be grown and exported to Europe for hard cash, or traded for the metals, goods, and other implements so badly needed by the first pioneers.

At the time William Burges arrived, in the late 1600s or early 1700s, the Indians were only a memory, the best lands long since settled and cleared, the tobacco boom somewhat waning, and the opportunities for a bright young man somewhat less than they would have been a generation before.  Yet, for whatever reason—poverty, religious persecution, politics—William and family felt compelled to make the difficult trek across the Atlantic and start over again in a new land.  The world that he found was a microcosm of English country life, complete with counties, country squires, an established Anglican Church system that was supported by and in turn supported the government, and a colonial parliament (the House of the Burgesses).  There were significant differences, too, including the absence of nobility, the fact that the large plantation owners were mostly self-made men, and the vast expanse of the land itself, promising, if the Indians could be pushed back, endless opportunities for those willing to work.  William and his wife never lived to see those possibilities, but his son Edward did.

For the Burgess family, the one key event of these early years was Edward Burgess's pur­chase of a 100-acre farm in King George Co. in 1731.  He must have scrimped for years to make the payments on the land, which was located in the "back woods" on the ridge between the rivers.  But the fact that he owned land made him self-sufficient, and it also gave him the right to vote.  Suddenly his sons could advance themselves, and each made the most of their opportunities.  At a time when only a third of the adult males of Virginia could vote, when even less of the population found it necessary to make wills disposing of their property, four of Edward's five sons bought farms larger than their father's, and all four left wills; only the second son, William (who died relatively young), did not leave an estate.

The portrait of the Burgess clan prior to the Revolutionary War is one of a close family group clustered around two centers:  the old family farm in King George Co., and the somewhat more bustling world of Stafford Co. ten miles to the northwest, where the port of New Marlborough provided an eye to the outside world and its attractions.  And it was to the Accokeek Creek area of Stafford (not far from the port, courthouse, and church) that the two older sons, Garner and William Burgess, were attracted in the 1750s.  King George Co. provided a comfortable haven from the world, a backwater little touched over the centuries by outside events (even the Civil War scarcely caused a rumble).  But Stafford and its port were a center of activity during the seventeenth and eigh­teenth centuries, with a constant stream of travelers and goods and activities flowing through its borders.  They must have beckoned to the Burgess boys like glittering lights attracting moths.  They married local girls and worked as farmhands for the established landowners of the region.  By the 1760s Garner Burges had pushed on into the frontier, leasing 200 acres on the Manor of Leeds, a huge tract personally owned by the Proprietor of the Northern Neck, Lord Fairfax, in the back woods of Fauquier County, Virginia.

When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, Garner was in Fauquier Co., William and Reuben in Stafford, Edward Jr. either in Stafford or Prince William Co., and Moses with his mother on the family farm in King George.  There is no evidence of any of these men serving in the Revolutionary War, although such service may well have not been recorded.  Most were too old and too well established; even the youngest, Reuben, was thirty-one, and all had families to support.  Only William Burgess may have had a son old enough to join the army, and family traditions state that William Burgess Jr. and Reuben Burgess did both serve.  William Sr. was the first of the brothers to die in 1780, leaving a widow and several married or underaged children.  It was left to his and his brother's descendants to begin the long trek West.

THE FIRST GENERATION
WILLIAM BURGES
(1670?-1712)

of Richmond (later King George) County, Virginia

               This family was located about thirty miles directly south of present-day Washington, DC.  The Northern Neck of Virginia, the long peninsula of land stretching between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, experienced a boom in the tobacco trade during the mid-1680s that resulted in a large influx of farmhands, both white and slave, to work the plantations which had grown up along the fertile river plains.  Land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of country gentlemen, who had built up their holdings cheaply through the "headright" system, by financing the importation of labor into the colonies.  For each settler whose passage was paid, the sponsor received fifty free acres of land, plus (usually) a contract binding the immigrant to seven years of indentured service.  Settlers who managed to pay their own way to the British colonies, or those who paid off their servitude after seven years, worked as overseers, tradesmen, and farmers, buying small plots of land in less favorable areas, or leasing plots from the larger plantations.  William was probably one of the laborers who flooded into the Northern Neck region between 1685-1710.  We know nothing of his origins.

               However, it is conceivable that he is the same person as the William Burges mentioned in The Complete Book of Emigrants, 1661-1699, by Peter Wilson Coldham (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1990, p. 682) as shipping goods (or himself and his possessions) from Bristol, England to Virginia between 4 Dec. 1697 and 2 Feb. 1697/98 O.S., on the same vessel (the Mountjoy) as goods being shipped by William French and George Mason.  The later Burgess connection with the French and Mason families is at least suggestive, although it must again be emphasized that there is no hard evidence to link our Burgess family with any other family or specific location in Europe.

The Children of William Burgess: 

2a.   Elizabeth (I).  Born about 1693.  No further record.
2b.   Mary (I).  Born about 1695.  No further record.
2c.   Sarah (I).  Born about 1697.  She or a sister may have married (Darby?) Swillivan(t) or Sullivan(t), and had children:  Burgess (born about 1725, married Anne Carver on 3 Feb. 1747/48 O.S. [St. Paul's Parish Regis­ter], listed in the King George Co. tax lists in the 1780s, and had at least the following children:  Sallie [born 24 Oct. 1748 O.S.]; William [born 8 Oct. 1750 O.S.]; Harry [born 6 July 1758]); Burgess Jr. (married Lynn [Linney] Wilkerson).
2d.  Edward (I).  Born about 1699.  See below for full entry.

THE WILL OF WILLIAM BURGES

The noncupative will of William Burges late of the parish of Saint Maries in the County of Richmond deced. who published and declared the same before us on Thursday the 23th [sic] day of Aprill in the yeare of our Lord 1712, in manner and forme ffollowing Sart. (?)

Imp      he did give and bequeath unto his son Edward Burges one gray mare

Item     he gave unto his Daughter Elizabeth Burges one catt teule [i.e., cattail] bed* wh the appurtenances

Item     he did give the bed whereon he dyed to his Daughter Sarah and also to his Daughter Mary one fflock bed*.

Item     he left his son Edward Burges to Jeremiah Bronaugh untill he came of the age of one and twenty yeares, and also his daughter Sarah untill she came to be sixteene yeares of age. 

Item     the rest of his Estate he gave to and amongst his children to be equally divided betweene them.

Evidence to the above Will

Richard Copeley
Rebekah Copley 

*A cattail bed was stuffed with the fluffed heads of cattail plants; a flock bed was stuffed with bits and pieces of rags and scrap cloth.

Att a Court held for Richmond County ye fourth day of June 1712 presented to the Court by Jeremiah Bronaugh and proved by Richard Copley and Rebekah his wife, who upon oath declare that the words or the same in effect in the aforesaid will or writing expressed were declared and publiquely spoken by the said William Burges in their presence and hearing the 23d day of Aprill 1712, and that he was att the same time of perfect mind and memory, to the best of their judgments whereupon on the motion of the said Jeremiah Bronaugh it is ordered to be recorded and administra­tion with ye said will annexed granted him on the said estate

Test. Jn° Tayloe Dll (?)

THE INVENTORY OF WILLIAM BURGES
(Richmond Co. Will Book #3, p. 105-106)

079

050

100

130

110

 020

112

220

100

100

200

550

350

 750

1100

James Grant, Henry Golley, William Proctor

Darby Sullivant wh delivered the above & had the estate in possession sworne before me as also the above appraisers sworne before me.  Allexr Doniphan

Recorded amongst the records of Richmond County the third day of Septt. 1712 and ordered to be recorded—Test. M. Beckwith CCur

*A flesh fork was a large prong used to lift meat from a pot.