Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/143

 COLONIAL COLXCILLORS OF STATE

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sioned member of the council Aug. 9, 1641, and retained liis seat as a member of that body until his death in 1643. On Jan. 15, 1637, "Captain Thomas Pawlett" received a grant of 2,000 acres of land in Cliarles City county, at W'estover, which was bounded on the south side by the river, east by the land of Capt. Perry, and west by Berkeley Hundred. This land was declared to be due to Capt. Pawlett for the "personal adventure" into the colony of himself and his brother, Chidock Pawlett, and for his transportation of thirty- eight other persons. By his will, dated Jan. 12, 1644, he left W'estover to his brother, Sir John Lord Pawlett, then living in Manchester, county Southampton, England.

Wyatt. Sir Francis, governor of X'irginia

(q. V. 1.

Ludlow, George, was a descendant of the old and distinguished fam.ily of Ludlow of \\'iltshire. He was baptized Sept. 15, 1596, and came to America about 1630. His first place of settlement was Massachusetts, where hfc was made a freeman, but about 1634, he removed to Virginia and settled in the upper county of New Norfolk, receiving there a grant of 500 acres of land. He appears to have been sworn as a member of the council in 1642 and on Aug. i of that year signed the "Declaration against the Company." He was present at the sessions of the council until the overthrow of the royal government in 1652, when he w^as at once elected to the same office by the house of burgesses, and by them re- elected a number of times. He held his office until his death in 1656. Though he was in- cluded in the commission issued to the coun- cil by Charles H. at Breda, in 1650, his sym- pathies were probably with parliament, and according to one authority declared openly in via: -8

its favor at the time of the colony's surrender to the commissioners. Col. George Lud- 1(AV was for many years one of the wealthiest and most active merchants in X'irginia and took up many thousand acres of land by patent and purchase. Like many of the prominent planters, he was much interested in the intro- duction of silk culture. Col. Ludlow's resi- dence was at the place now known as "Temple Farm," a little below Yorktown and it is possi- ble that the ancient house, still standing in part, in which Cornwallis signed his sur- render, was built by Ludlow.

Freeman, Bridges, was a burgess for Pash- bahay in 1629-30, before which date nothing is known of him. His lands lay on the east side of the Chickahominy river, and in Sept., 1632, he represented Chickahominy in the house of burgesses. In November, 1647, he was again a burgess, this time for James City. It was in the same month that the assembly appointed him collector of public levies at Chickahominy and Sandy Point. He was a member of the council, and present at the board, Sept. 30, 1650, and was reelected a member, April 30, 1652, and again, as "Colo- nel Bridges Freeman," on March 31, 1654-55. It is probable that for a time he was adjutant- general of the colony, as "Adjutant Freeman" was present as a councillor, Nov. 6, 165 1.

Davenant, Sir William, the famous Eng- lish poet, and the successor to "Rare Ben Johnson" as poet laureate, was appointed to his Majesty's council in X'irginia June 3, 1650. During the civil wars in England he had been prominent in the army of King Charles, who knighted him, but on the defeat of the Royal- ists, he took refuge in France and devoted himself to writing under the patronage of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of the unfor-