Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/603

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

967

being under the feudal system) and took the name of Berkeley, from which union came the present Berkeley family. Eva Berke- ley's line no doubt ran back before the year 1000, under the name of Berkeley.

Thomas Berkeley, eighth lord or baron of Berkeley Castle, was in the battle of Poitiers, 1356, where he rode out before the French knights and challenged their best to single combat. They rode him down in numbers and held him for heavy ransom. In 1361 he bought the ancient castle of Beverstone, in Gloucestershire, and gave it tc a younger son, whose descendants lived there for eight generations. In 1597 John Berkeley, Esq., then the owner of this estate, and at that time the head of the Beverstone branch of the Berkeley family, and the eighth generation of the same, sold it. In 1618 he came to Virginia to superintend the iron works at Falling Creek, in Chesterfield county, about seven miles south of Man- chester, near where Falling Creek empties into the James river, having a free hand from the company to spend $200,000 in that adventure. He was appointed a member of the council under Governor Yeardley, and was killed at Falling Creek by the In- dians in the massacre of 1622. He had ten children, of whom the sons were : Maurice, Thomas, \\'illiam, Henry, John. John, the youngest son, who was with him at Fall- ing Creek, is thought to have escaped the massacre. At the time Maurice was in Eng- land, and afterward came to Virginia, with a view of re-establishing the iron works, a plan which he reported as not feasible. Of Maurice nothing more is known, except that he had charge of the salt works for the colony, and had a son, Lieutenant Edward or Edmund Berkeley, who with his wife Jane, and daughter Jane, was living at Neck of Land (between Jamestown Island and the main land), Virginia, in 1620, and who was a member of the house of burgesses in 1625. The iron and salt industries men- tioned here were two of the first three in- dustries of the kind founded in the New World — the other being the glass works. The report which was carried to England by John Harvey in February or March, 1625, stated that Lieutenant Edward Berke- ley was living on Hog Island, in the James river. From this period (1625) there is no mention of the family in records now extant, until twenty-six years later, 1651, when

there was a grant to Henry Berkeley, Esq., of 2400 acres on the north side of Chicka- hominy river, in what was then James City county, but afterwards doubtless in New Kent. "Captain Berkeley's land" on Chick- ahominy is afterwards mentioned in 1655.

The next of the name was Captain Wil- liam Berkeley, who, as appears from Hen- ning, was a member of the Virginia long parliament, the house of burgesses, 1660 to 1675. In the records of Middlesex, in 1673, is mention of a Thomas Berkeley. From good authority it is apparent that Maurice Berkeley, above mentioned, was the grand- father of Edmund Berkeley, of Gloucester. He had a wife Mary, who after his death married John Mann, of Timberneck, Glou- cester county, Virginia, and who is de- scribed on her tombstone as "gentlewoman."

Colonel Edmvmd Berkeley, the son of Ed- mund and Mary Berkeley, of Gloucester, was living in Gloucester county, in 1694, and in 1702 married Lucy Burwell, a daugh- ter of Major Lewis Burwell, of Carters Creek, Gloucester county, and his first wife, Abigail Smith, niece and heiress of Presi- dent Nathaniel Bacon. They were the an- cestors of all of the Berkeley name in Vir- ginia using this spelling. There is a family using the form Berkley, which claims de- scent from John Berkley, of Falling Creek, which is probably correct. Between 1712 and 1718, Colonel Edmund Berkeley moved to his then splendid estate, "Barn Elms," in Middlesex county, Virginia, where he lived in great elegance and luxury. He was ap- pointed president of the council in 1713 under Governor Alexander Spottswood, without the latter's recommendation, which created friction between him and Governor .'Spottswood and the lords commissioners of trade. He was appointed county lieutenant of .Middlesex in 1715, and died in 1718. He used the Berkeley coat-of-arms, and the crest of the Beverstone branch, a unicorn's head, and was a man of considerable wealth and prominence in the colony.

His eldest and only surviving son, Colo- nel Edmund Berkeley, was born November 26, 1704, and succeeded to his father's estate, was appointed justice of Middlesex in 1725, and served as a member of the house of bur- gesses in 1736 and subsequently. He mar- ried, May 18. 1728, Mary Nel.son, of York- town, and their second son and third child was Nelson Berkeley.