Richard Stephens (burgess)
Captain Richard Stephens (1602 in Wiltshire, England – 1636) arrived as an unmarried man of means, with two to four servants, at Jamestown Settlement on February 16, 1623, aboard ''The George''. Stephens was an experienced military man and quickly began to establish himself in the colony by acquiring land, and was soon named burgess in the colony. After building a blockhouse and receiving a patent on the same, the captain was issued the first English land grant in the colony as incentive for other landowners to follow his example and build gardens within their property holdings. Captain Stephens amassed nearly 2000 acres by his death in 1636. Stephens married Elizabeth Piercy (born 1600), daughter of Abraham Piercy, cape merchant of Jamestown. They had four sons: John, William, Richard Lawrence, and Samuel. Stephens fought the first duel in the English colonies after an argument with George Harrison, the latter being struck just below the knee. Harrison died two weeks later, th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wiltshire, England
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county's boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jamestown Settlement
Jamestown Settlement is a living history museum operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, created in 1957 as Jamestown Festival Park for the 350th anniversary celebration. Today it includes a recreation of the original James Fort (c. 1607 to 1614), a Powhatan Native American town, indoor and outdoor displays, and replicas of the original settlers' ships: the '' Susan Constant'', ''Godspeed'', and ''Discovery''. The museum complex is located adjacent to Historic Jamestowne, on Jamestown Island, which is run in partnership by the National Park Service and the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, a private nonprofit branch oPreservation Virginiadedicated to the archaeological mission. Historic Jamestowne is established in the original James Fort and Jamestown Colony, the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America, founded on May 14, 1607. Colonial Williamsburg and ThAmerican Revolution Museum in Yorktown additional living history sites, follow the next cent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Burgess (title)
Burgess was a British title used in the medieval and early modern period to designate someone of the Burgher class. It originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh but later coming to mean an official of a municipality or a representative in the House of Commons. Usage in England In England, burgess meant an elected or unelected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons. This usage of "burgess" has since disappeared. Burgesses as freemen had the sole right to vote in municipal or parliamentary elections. However, these political privileges in Britain were removed by the Reform Act in 1832. Usage in Scotland Burgesses were originally freeman inhabitants of a city where they owned land and who contributed to the running of the town and its taxation. The title of ''burgess'' was later restricted to merchants and craftsmen, so that only burgesses could enjoy the privileges of trading or practising a craft in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Blockhouse
A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive strong point against any enemy that does not possess siege equipment or, in modern times, artillery, air force and cruise missiles. A fortification intended to resist these weapons is more likely to qualify as a fortress or a redoubt, or in modern times, be an underground bunker. However, a blockhouse may also refer to a room within a larger fortification, usually a battery or redoubt. Etymology The term ''blockhouse'' is of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Middle Dutch ''blokhus'' and 18th-century French '' blocus'' (blockade). In ancient Greece Blockhouses existed in ancient Greece, for example the one near Mycenae. Early blockhouses in England Early blockhouses were designed solely to protect a particular area by the use ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Land Grant
A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants of land are also awarded to individuals and companies as incentives to develop unused land in relatively unpopulated countries; the process of awarding land grants are not limited to the countries named below. The United States historically gave out numerous land grants as Homesteads to individuals desiring to prove a farm. The American Industrial Revolution was guided by many supportive acts of legislatures (for example, the Main Line of Public Works legislation of 1826) promoting commerce or transportation infrastructure development by private companies, such as the Cumberland Road turnpike, the Lehigh Canal, the Schuylkill Canal and the many railroads that tied the young United States together. Ancient Rome Roman soldiers were g ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bacon's Castle
Bacon's Castle, also variously known as "Allen's Brick House" or the "Arthur Allen House" is located in Surry County, Virginia, United States, and is the oldest documented brick dwelling in what is now the United States. Built in 1665, it is noted as an extremely rare example of Jacobean architecture in the New World. The house became known as "Bacon's Castle" because it was occupied as a fort or "castle" by the followers of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. However, contrary to popular folklore, Bacon never lived at Bacon's Castle, nor is he even known to have visited it. Today Bacon's Castle is an historic house museum and historic site open for guest visitation. Bacon's Castle is an official Preservation Virginia historic site and operates under its 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit status. History Soon after Surry County was formed in the Royal Colony of Virginia in 1652, Arthur Allen built a high style Jacobean brick house in 1665 near the James River, where h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion held by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley, after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native Americans out of Virginia. Thousands of Virginians from all classes (including those in indentured servitude) and races rose up in arms against Berkeley, chasing him from Jamestown and ultimately torching the settlement. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists. Government forces arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct Crown control. Bacon's rebellion was the first rebellion in the North American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part (a somewhat similar uprising in Maryland involving John Coode and Josias Fendall took place shortly afterwa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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English Emigrants
The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in Old English as the ('race or tribe of the Angles'). Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain around the 5th century AD. The English largely descend from two main historical population groups the West Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians) who settled in southern Britain following the withdrawal of the Romans, and the partially Romanised Celtic Britons already living there.Martiniano, R., Caffell, A., Holst, M. et al. Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons. Nat Commun 7, 10326 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10326 Collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, they founded what was to become the Kingdom of England by the ea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1636 Deaths
Events January–March * January 1 – Anthony van Diemen takes office as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and will serve until his death in 1645. * January 18 – '' The Duke's Mistress'', the last play by James Shirley, is given its first performance. * February 21 – Al Walid ben Zidan, Sultan of Morocco, is assassinated by French renegades. * February 26 – Nimi a Lukeni a Nzenze a Ntumba is installed as King Alvaro VI of Kongo, in the area now occupied by the African nation of Angola, and rules until his death on February 22, 1641. * March 5 (February 24 Old Style) – King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway gives an order, that all beggars that are able to work must be sent to Brinholmen, to build ships or to work as galley rowers. * March 13 (March 3 Old Style) – A "great charter" to the University of Oxford establishes the Oxford University Press, as the second of the privileged presses in Englan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |