Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/288

 PROMINENT PERSONS

235

Pasteur, William, son of Jean Pasteur, a surgeon of Geneva, who came to Virginia in 1700, and settled in Williamsburg. The sen was a prominent surgeon and apothe- cary in Williamsburg. He was a justice of the peace of York county and mayor of the city in 1775. He was prominent at the time Lord Dunmore removed the powder from the magazine. He married Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Dr. William Stith, president of Wil- liam and Mary College. His brother James was a minister of St. Bride's parish, Nor- fulk county, and died in 1774.

Mossom, David, son of Thomas Mossom, chandler of (jreenwich, Kent county, Eng- land, was born March 25, 1690, matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1705, came to X'irginia in 1718 and was minister of St. Peter's Parish Church in New Kent county from 1727 to January 4, 1767, when h( died. He was the minister that married George Washington to the Widow Martha Custis. at the "White House'' on the Pa- munkey river. He was the first American admitted to the office of Presbyter in the church. His daughter Elizabeth, born 1722, married Capt. William Reynolds, owner of a vessel plying in the tobacco trade. Their caughter Elizabeth married Richard Chap- man, whose son. Reynolds Chapman, suc- ceeded George C. Taylor as clerk of Orange county in 1802.

Van Braam, Jacob, a native of Holland. He had served in the Carthagena expedition, under the P.ritish Admiral Vernon, in the same department with Major Lawrence Washington. He came to Virginia and taught military tactics. He was a Mason, and he and Washington were members of the Fredericksburg lodge. When Washing-

ton, then a major, went on his journey in the fall of 1753 ^o deliver Gov. Dinwiddie's message to the French commander on the Ohio, he took Van Braam with him as an attendant. In 1754 he served as a lieutenant under Washington, in the expedition to the Ohio ; was promoted to captain. When Fort Necessity capitulated. Van Braam and Cap- tain Stobo were held by the French as host- ages, and taken to Canada; the latter es- caped, and Van Braam was liberated when Montreal fell. Van Braam received nine thousand acres of land under the Dinwiddie pioclamation. He was made major of a battalion of the Sixtieth Foot Royal Amer- icans on duty in the West Indies in 1777.

Muse, George, had served in the Cartha- gena expedition, in the Virginia regiment commanded by Col. Spotswood, under Ad- miral Vernon. He returned to Virginia, and it is said that at one time he instructed George Washington in military tactics. He was made one of the four adjutant majors ot" the provincial militia. In the spring of 1754 Goveruor Dinwiddie appointed him major of the Virginia regiment, and he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel June 4, to succeed Col. Joshua Fry, deceased. He joined Washington, but for some reason his name was omitted from the list of officers \\ ho received the thanks of the house of bur- gesses for good conduct in the battle of Great Meadows. He received, however, a land grant, but the small quantity allotted him (thirty-five hundred acres) moved him to address a rude protest to Washingfton. who answered, **as he is not very agreeable lo the other officers, I am well pleased at his resignation.**

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