Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/63

 COLONIAL PRESIDENTS AND GOVERNORS

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the present site of Williamsburg, ami he called his place Ilarrop, after the i)Iace oi his family in Cheshire. He had a brother. Francis Pott, who was a prominent member of the assembly. His nephew. John Pott, moved to Patuxent in Maryland, where he was one of the justices in 1657.

Harvey, Sir John, governor from March 24. U)30, to April 28, 1635, was a native of Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire; had been a captain of a ship in the East Indies. In 1624 he was one of the commissioners ai)pointed to report to the king upon the conditions of the colony. He was appointed a member of the council in August, 1624, and in the commission to Sir George Yardley, March 4, 1625-26. Harvey was named his successor. He left Virginia, and commanded a ship in the expedition against Cadiz in 1625. He did not return till March 24, 1630. During his administration the first settlements were made on the York river and on Kent Island. In the dispute with Lord Baltimore he took sides against Claiborne, deposed him in 1634 from his posi- tion as secretary of state, and on April 28, 1635, was himself deposed from the govern- ment by the council, which action was con- firmed by the assembly. Sent prisoner to Eng- land in the custody of two of the assembly, Francis Pott and Thomas Harwood, he had his guards arrested on their arrival, and brought the matter of his deposition up before the privy council. The king declared the transaction "an act of regal authority," and fearing the example, kept the two daring burgesses in prison, and sent orders for the arrest of the councillors who took part in Harvey's deposi- tion. Meanwhile, to rebuke the dangerous pre- cedent set in Virginia, he restored Harvey to his government. This second administration

began with llarve}'s arrival in the colony Jan- uary iS. i')37, and was marked by measures taken by Harvey to build up Jamestown. Some twelve brick houses were erected, and stejxs taken to build a brick church and brick state house. Put Harvey resumed his arbitrary behavior, and raised so many (|uarrels that the king in August. 1639. ccjmmissioned Sir Francis W'yatt. who had already figured once before as governor, to be his successor. On Wyatt's arrival, Harvey's i^roperty at York and Jamestown was seized to repay his numer- ous creditors, and the ex-governor died a bank- ru])t not long after.

West, Captain John, deputy governor from

April 2S, 1635. to January 18, 1637, was the brother of Lord Delaware, and was born De- cember 14, 1590. He came to \'irginia about 1620, and after the massacre in 1622 com- manded a company of men against the Indians. He was a member of the council, and when in 1630 the council resolved to plant a settlement on the York, Captain West was one of the two first settlers to patent lands on King's creek. There at his residence afterwards known as liellfield was born, in 1632, the first child of English parents born on York river. When Sir John Harvey was deposed April 28, 1635, Captain West was prevailed upon by the coun- cil to accept the office of governor, which he held for eighteen months ; and though he and the other leading men were arrested for their presumption, nothing was done to him. So far from that, Wyatt was sent over governor in 1639, John West's name appeared in the new commission as ''Marshall and Muster Master General," in King Charles' own handwriting. He remained! a member of the council for many years later. In 1650 he sold his plan- tation on York river to Edward Digges, Esq.,