Reverend Richard Buck was a minister to the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colonial empire, English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertG ...

Jamestown, Virginia The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was ...

from 1610 to 1624. He was chaplain of the first session of the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 161 ...

, which was composed of the

House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established ...

and the

Virginia Governor's Council The Governor's Council (also known as the "Council of State" or simply "the Council") was the upper house of the colonial legislature (the House of Burgesses was the other house) in the Colony of Virginia from 1607 until the American Revolution i ...

. This assembly met in the church at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, as the first elected assembly and law making body in

colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...

Early life

Richard Buck was born in 1582 in

Wymondham Wymondham ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the South Norfolk district of Norfolk, England, south-west of Norwich, England, Norwich off the A11 road (England), A11 road to London. The River Tiffey runs through ...

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England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

.Grizzard, Frank E. and Dennis Boyd Smith. ''Jamestown Colony: A Political, Social and Cultural History''. Santa Barbara, CA : ABC-CLIO, 2007. . p. 32. Buck was a graduate of

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Tyler, Lyon Gardiner, ed
''Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography''
Volume 1. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915. . Retrieved May 5, 2013. p. 198.Campbell, Charles. ''History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia''. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1860. . p. 95.

Recruitment and journey

Buck was recruited to serve as minister to the

at Jamestown after the colony's first minister, Reverend Robert Hunt, died in 1608.Grizzard, 2007, p. 33. Dr.

Thomas Ravis Thomas Ravis (c. 1560 – 14 December 1609) was a Church of England bishop and academic. He was among those engaged in translating the King James Bible. Early life Ravis was born at Old Malden in Surrey, probably in 1560, and educated at West ...

, the Bishop of London, had recommended Buck for the appointment. Buck, his wife and their two daughters sailed for Jamestown in 1609 with the colony's new governor, Sir Thomas Gates aboard the ''

Sea Venture ''Sea Venture'' was a seventeenth-century English sailing ship, part of the Third Supply mission to the Jamestown Colony, that was wrecked in Bermuda in 1609. She was the 300 ton purpose-built flagship of the London Company and a highly unusual ...

''.Chandler, Julian Alvin Carroll and Thomas Butler Thames. ''Colonial Virginia''. Richmond, VA: The Times-Dispatch Company, 1907. . p. 194. The ''Sea Venture'' was wrecked in a storm off the coast of

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

and the passengers and crew did not arrive at Jamestown until May 23, 1610, nine months after the other ships of the

Third Supply The Jamestown supply missions were a series of fleets (or sometimes individual ships) from 1607 to around 1611 that were dispatched from England by the London Company (also known as the Virginia Company of London) with the specific goal of initially ...

. While in Bermuda, Buck baptized the newborn daughter of

John Rolfe John Rolfe (1585 – March 1622) was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia in 1611. Biography John Rolfe is believed ...

and his first wife, Sarah Hacker.Tyler, 1900. p. 87. The child, named Bermuda, died afterwards.Tyler, 1900. p. 75. Sarah died before Rolfe arrived in Virginia.

Arrival and Resupply

When Gates and the other colonists from the ''Sea Venture'' arrived at Jamestown, they found only 60 of the previous 500 colonists still alive after the harsh winter of 1609-1610 which became known as the "

Starving Time The Starving Time at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia was a period of starvation during the winter of 1609–1610. There were about 500 Jamestown residents at the beginning of the winter. However, there were only 61 people still alive when the ...

." Buck led the colonists in a "zealous and sorrowful prayer," which commemorated those who were deceased. Reverend Buck immediately gained the respect and affection of the colonists as his prayer reminded them of their esteemed first preacher, Robert Hunt.

praised Buck as a "veerie good preacher." In the following month,

Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr ( ; 9 July 1577 – 7 June 1618), was an English merchant and politician, for whom the bay, the river, and, consequently, a Native American people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named. He was ...

arrived at Jamestown with supplies and new colonists and assumed the office of governor on June 10, 1610.Campbell, 1860. p. 98. He was just in time to persuade the original settlers, who were nearly out of food and supplies and had boarded their ships to leave, not to return to England. West's first act was to kneel and say a silent prayer upon his arrival.Neill, 1869, p. 42. Then he went to the chapel to hear a sermon from Reverend Buck.

Life at Jamestown

Buck's duties included leading prayers twice a day and preaching on Thursday and Sunday. He officiated at religious and public events. Some sources state that Buck presided over the wedding of John Rolfe and

Pocahontas Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of ...

on April 5, 1614. Others say that

Alexander Whitaker Alexander Whitaker (1585–1616) was an English Anglican theologian who settled in North America in Virginia Colony in 1611 and established two churches near the Jamestown colony. He was also known as "The Apostle of Virginia" by contemporaries. ...

, a vicar who settled at

Henricus The "Citie of Henricus"—also known as Henricopolis, Henrico Town or Henrico—was a settlement in Virginia founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1611 as an alternative to the swampy and dangerous area around the original English settlement at Jamestow ...

, presided at the wedding of Rolfe and Pocahontas. The

Virginia Company The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Main ...

set aside 100 acres of land for

glebe Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...

lands but the Buck family lived near the church in the Jamestown fort. In 1619, Buck acquired 750 acres of land in the "Neck-of-Land", which was separated from the north side of Jamestown Island by water. The location adjacent to Jamestown was an obvious area for expansion of the colony since it was close to the fort. Buck had indentured servants develop the land. These servants included caretaker Richard Kingsmill (sometimes spelled Kingsmell), who later became a large property owner. In 1620, William Fairfax sold 12 acres in Jamestown, including a home and an outbuilding, to Buck.

First Virginia General Assembly

Reverend Buck opened the first session of the Virginia General Assembly, which convened in the church at Jamestown on July 30, 1619.Bryan, 1908, p. 22
Retrieved May 5, 2013. He prayed "that it would please God to guide and sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne glory and the good of this Plantation."

Death and family

He married Elizabeth Browne on 7 July 1607 in Norfolk, England. Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir George Browne and a granddaughter of

Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, KB, PC (29 November 1528 – 19 October 1592) was an English peer during the Tudor period. Biography Anthony Browne was the eldest of the six sons of Sir Anthony Browne by his first wife, Alice Gage (d. ...

and

Magdalen Dacre Magdalen Dacre, Viscountess Montagu (January 1538 – 8 April 1608) was an English noblewoman. She was the daughter of William Dacre, 3rd Baron Dacre of Gilsland, and the second wife of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. Magdalen, a fervent ...

. Buck died at Jamestown in 1624.Chandler, 1907, p. 195, gives the year of Buck's death as 1623. This difference could be due to the use of the old calendar. According to historians Frank E. Gizzard and Dennis Boyd Smith, Buck's wife died within a few months of her husband. He and Elizabeth had six children who survived to adulthood. They were Mara, Benoni, Gercian, Peleg, Elizabeth, who became the wife of Sergeant

Thomas Crump __NOTOC__ Thomas Crump (12 March 1845 – 18 January 1907) was an English clergyman and amateur cricketer. After graduating from Oxford University, Crump held various ecclesiastical roles in the Herefordshire and Shropshire areas before movin ...

(or Crampe), later a member of the

, and Bridget, who married John Burras, a brother of

Anne Burras Anne Burras was an early English settler in Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mounta ...

Notes

References

* Beverley, Robert. ''The History of Virginia in Four Parts''. Richmond, VA: J. W. Randolph, 1855. . 2d revised edition originally published London: 1722. * Bryan, Corbin Braxton. ''The Church at Jamestown'' in Clark, W. M., ed. ''Colonial Churches in the Original Colony of Virginia''. 2d. ed. Richmond, VA: Southern Churchman Company, 1908. . * Campbell, Charles. ''History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia''. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1860. . * Chandler, Julian Alvin Carroll and Thomas Butler Thames. ''Colonial Virginia''. Richmond, VA: The Times-Dispatch Company, 1907. . *

Fischer, David Hackett David Hackett Fischer (born December 2, 1935) is University Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University. Fischer's major works have covered topics ranging from large macroeconomic and cultural trends (''Albion's Seed,'' ''The Great Wave'' ...

. '' Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America''. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989. . * Glover, Lorri and Daniel Blake Smith
''The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America''
New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC: 2008. . Retrieved May 5, 2013. * Grizzard, Frank E. and Dennis Boyd Smith. ''Jamestown Colony: A Political, Social and Cultural History''. Santa Barbara, CA : ABC-CLIO, 2007. . * Hatch, Charles E. ''The First Seventeen Years Virginia, 1607-1624''. Williamsburg, VA: Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corp., 1957. . * Neill, Edward D. ''History of the Virginia Company of London''. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell, 1869. . * Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. ''The Cradle of the Republic: Jamestown and James River''. Richmond, VA: Whittet and Shepperson, 1900. . * Tyler, Lyon Gardiner
''Encyclopedia of Virginia biography"
Volume 1. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915. . Retrieved July 15, 2011. {{DEFAULTSORT:Buck, Richard Virginia colonial people 1582 births 1624 deaths Anglican chaplains People from the Borough of Melton People from Jamestown, Virginia