Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/76

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

Five Nations, which put an end to the raids of the Senecas on the frontiers. At length Howard departed for England, October 20, 1688, leaving Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., in charge of the government. The assembly sent Lud- well as their agent to urge complaints against him. He did not return, but he was allowed to retain his office of governor as an absentee with half his salary, while his duties were dis- charged by a lieutenant. He died March 30, 1694. While he lived in Virginia, he spent much of his time at Rosegill, the house of the Wormeleys, on the Rappahannock. On August 31. 1685, his wife Lady Philadelphia Howard (daughter of Sir Thomas Pelham), died in X'irginia, aged thirty-one, and her remains were carried to England and interred at Ling- field. On the way over, his daughter Margaret Frances, who accompanied her mother's body, also died.

Bacon, Nathaniel, Sr., president of the council and acting governor of \'irginia, was baptized at St. Mary, Bury St. Edmund's, August 29, 1620, and died in York county, Virginia, March 16, 1692. His father, Rev. James Bacon, was rector of Burgate, Suffolk, and died August 25, 1670, and liis grandfather, Sir James Bacon, of Friston Hall, Suffolk, was first cousin of Francis Bacon, Lord Veru- 1am. Nathaniel Bacon, the subject of this sketch, was first cousin once removed of Na- thaniel Bacon, Jr., "the Rebel." He travelled in France in 1647, ^"<J ^^'^s probably a gradu- ate of Cambridge; came about 1650 to Vir- ginia, where he settled first in Isle of Wight county, and then at "King's Creek," York county, on one of the first tracts of land patented on York river. He was chosen mem- ber of the council in 1657, but held the office for only a year ; was burgess for York county

in 1658-59, and was reappointed to the coun- cil in 1660; appointed' auditor general March 12, 1675, resigning in December, 1687. was president of the council, and as such acting governor during the absence of Lord Howard in New York in the summer of 1684, during his absence on a visit to the southern part of the colony in December. 1687, and in the inter- val between his departure for England, Octo- ber 28, 1688, and the arrival of Governor Francis Nicholson, May 16, 1690. He did not approve the course of his young kinsman Nathaniel Bacon, Jr.. and it was at his house on King's creek that Sir \\'illiam Berkeley first put foot to land after his return from the eastern shore in 1676.

Lord Howard had left the colony just before the abdication of James II., and the uncer- tainty attending affairs in England created something like a panic in \^irginia. Rumors of terrible plots of Catholics and Indians were circulated, which President Bacon and his council allayed as far as possible. But the difficulties of maintaining order might have became insuperable, had not the news of the accession of the Prince and Princess of Orange arrived. Colonel Bacon's health was ver\' feeble at this time, and he died March 16, 1692. As he had no children he bequeathed his estate to his niece Abigail Smith, who mar- ried Major Lewis Burwell, of Gloucester county, and has many descendants in Virginia and the south.

Nicholson, Sir Francis, lieutenant-governor from May 16, 1690, to January, 1694, and from 1698 to April, 1705. was born in 1660; obtained a commission in the English army as ensign January 9, 1678, and as lieutenant May 6, 1684. He was a strong Tor\' and church- man. When in 1686 the whole body of col-