Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/112

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\'IRGL\IA BIOGRAPHY

ing two sons, Ralph and Thomas, who both came to \'irginia. Ralph came over in 1609 and remained until June 8, 1614, when he sailed for England. In the next year he pub- lished "A true discourse of the present estate of \'irginia until the i8th of June 1614." Hamor stayed in England until 1617, in which year, upon the 8th of January, the company gave him eight shares in Virginia, and he soon afterwards sailed once more for the colony, arriving there in ]\Iay. He seems to have re- turned to England again in a few years, for we find a grant to some one who is said to have, in 1621, "paid her own costs to Vir- ginia," in the ship "Sea Flower," "with Captain Ralph Hamor." It was in the last named year that he was appointed a member of the council, an office which he retained until his death. In the massacre of 1622, Capt. Hamor was attacked by the Indians near a new house he was having built, but with the help of a few other persons, drove them off with bricks, spades, picks, etc. His brother, Thomas Hamor, who lived nearby, also escaped but was wounded. Soon after the massacre, Capt. Ralph wrote a letter to the Virginia Company, which was received in Eng- land October 22, 1622, giving an account of what had happened since that event, and say- ing that it was the governor's intention to attack the Indians with 500 men at the end of August. A letter from the governor and coun- cil, written Jan. 20, 1622-23, told how Capt. Hamor, "being sent to the Patomacs to trade for corn, slew divers of the Nechonicos who sought to circumvent him by treachery." On Apr. 2. 1623, George Sandys wrote to Eng- land in regard to the character and capacity of the various councillors. Pie said that Hamor's extreme poverty forced him "to shifts." Capt. Hamor married a widow, Mrs.

Elizabeth Clements. In 1625 his "muster" in- cluded himself, ]\Irs. Elizabeth Hamor, and her children, Jeremy and Elizabeth Clements. In 1626 he owned 250 acres at Hog Island, and 500 at Blunt Point, but lived at Jamestown. On ]\Iarch 4, 1626, and again on Alarch 22, 1627-28, he was. commissioned a councillor. He probably died soon after the latter date. In addition to his seat in the council, he held for a time, the place of recorder of the colony from 161 1 to 1614.

Rolfe, John, belonged to a family well known in the county of Norfolk, England, for centuries. The names of Rolfe's immediate ancestors, the Rolfes of Heacham Hall, ap- pear on the register of Heacham Church as early as May 27, 1560. John Rolfe, himself, was baptized there I\Iay 6, 1585. Rolfe was an energetic and enterprising man and one of the type most needed in the Mrginia colony, a man ready for any adventure. The elder Hamor wrote that "during the time of his abode there no man hath labored more than he hath done." He had been educated in an English university and was married to an English girl, when, in 1619, he embarked for Virginia on board the "Sea Venture," which was cast away in the Bermudas with Sir Thomas Gates and other leaders of the expe- dition. During their ten months' stay in the islands, a little daughter was born to the Rolfes and named for her birthplace, Ber- muda. The child did not live, however, nor did Mrs. Rolfe more than a short time after her arrival in \"irginia. Rolfe speedily be- came prominent in the colony and to him be- longs the credit of introducing tobacco in 1612, which afterwards became the source of such large revenue to Virginia and was long used as currency. He was made a member of