William Peirce ( to ), emigrated with his family to the new
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 ...
, where he became a valued soldier, as well as a planter, merchant and politician. Although Peirce fought in several skirmishes with Native Americans and served in both houses 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 ...
as well as helped topple governor
John Harvey John Harvey may refer to:
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* John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture ...
, today he may best be known as one of the first slave owners in the colony.
[ available at https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/peirce-william-d-btw-1645-and-1647/ , publisher= Encyclopedia Virginia/]Dictionary of Virginia Biography
The ''Dictionary of Virginia Biography'' (''DVB'') is a multivolume biographical reference work published by the Library of Virginia
that covers aspects of Virginia's history and culture since 1607. The work was intended to run for a projected fou ...
, accessdate=18 July 2023,
Early life
Pierce was born and married in England. In June 1609 he sailed for the two year old Virginia Colony with his wife and daughter (both named Joan) in a nine-boat flotilla. While the women arrived in the colony by the end of the year, Peirce's ship, the ''
Sea Venture,'' shipwrecked in Bermuda, and he did not arrive until 1610. Another passenger on the wrecked vessel was
John Rolfe, who was responsible for re-establishing the
Jamestown settlement (and thus the colony), became the husband of Peirce's daughter (after outliving two previous wives).
[John Frederick Dorman, Adventures of Purse and Person: Virginia: 1607-1624/5 (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 2004; 4th edition) vol. 3, pp. 24-25]
Career
Peirce had military training and used it, as the new colony threatened the interests of local indigenous people as well as prospective Dutch colonists. However, Peirce had not yet arrived when the
Anglo-Powhatan Wars began in 1609, though he witnessed Governor
George Yeardley's treaty with the
Chickahominy people. Later that year, he, John Rolfe and another man went to
Old Point Comfort to meet the ''Treasurer'', which bore the first Africans to reach the English colony, and his household later included a Black woman who had arrived on that ship. Peirce was among the officers and troops responding to the
massacres of 1622. Likewise, while Virginia colonists traded with the Dutch during his lifetime, the
Anglo-Dutch wars erupted less than a decade after his death, and included an attack on Jamestown.
Peirce eventually built a store and what Sandys called the fairest house (a brick dwelling) in Jamestown, the colony's seat of government and main settlement. He also bought land
nearby
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Nearby was fo ...
. As a government structure became established, and the countryside divided into shires, Peirce bought several land parcels. One that he bought with Rolfe and Smith, included 1700 acres on
Mulberry Island
Mulberry Island is located along the James River in the city of Newport News, Virginia, in southeastern Virginia at the confluence of the Warwick River on the Virginia Peninsula.
History
Mulberry Island, settled shortly after Jamestown, was ...
(which later became
Warwick County). Peirce also was one of three commissioners whom Virginia's governor designated to deal with a ship with enslaved Africans that arrived in the colony in 1619, and at least one of the first enslaved Africans, "
Angela
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", lived at his house for eight years.
James City County voters elected Peirce as one of the men representing them in 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 ...
in 1624, and re-elected him in 1624. He was appointed to the legislature's higher branch, the
Governor's Council (also known as the Council of State) in 1632, and remained a council member until 1643, a few years before his death.
Notwithstanding Peirce's role in ousting Governor Harvey, Dame Elizabeth Harvey in 1644/1645 asked that he and
Richard Kemp
Colonel Richard Justin Kemp (born 14 April 1959) is a retired British Army officer who served from 1977 to 2006. Kemp was an infantry battalion commanding officer. Among his assignments were the command of Operation Fingal in Afghanistan from ...
be substituted as trustees for
Nansemond
The Nansemond are the indigenous people of the Nansemond River, a 20-mile long tributary of the James River in Virginia. Nansemond people lived in settlements on both sides of the Nansemond River where they fished (with the name "Nansemond" meanin ...
land held in trust for Samuel Stephens, her son by a previous marriage. The previous trustees were previously Capt. Samuel Mathews, D. Gookin, George Ludlow and Thomas Bernard.
Personal life and genealogical complication
Various spellings of the relatively common English surname (Peirce, Pierce, Pearce or Pears) or abounded in this era, and another Englishman with the same name and also with a wife named "Joan" traveled about the same time to England's Plymouth Colony far to the north. Also, this man was long-lived for the era and of course many records have been lost over the centuries. One historian has noted two men who may have been his sons, or distantly or unrelated. Several years after this man's death, in 1655, Thomas Peirce lived on
Mulberry Island
Mulberry Island is located along the James River in the city of Newport News, Virginia, in southeastern Virginia at the confluence of the Warwick River on the Virginia Peninsula.
History
Mulberry Island, settled shortly after Jamestown, was ...
in Warwick County, who may have been the same Thomas Peirce who in March 1676 patented 1655 acres on Mulberry Island. This William Peirce had patented land on Mulberry Island in 1619, but three years later Thomas Peirce who had been the sergeant at arms of the Virginia General Assembly in 1619 and the brother of London merchant and tailor Edward Peirce, died in the 1622 massacre (as did his wife and child). The other possibly related man was named William Peirce, who in 1649 patented 200 acres to the northwest in what was then
Northumberland County (and which became
Westmoreland County). That William Peirce participated in many land transactions in the drainage area of the Rappahannock River, became a justice of the Westmoreland County Court in 1661 (and remained such for three decades) and served as a burgess in 1680-1682. The Rappahannock watershed developed decades after the Jamestown/Mulberry Island area of the James River watershed, and again no record exists of a family relationship with this man, nor Edward nor Thomas Peirce.
[McCartney pp. 314-315 ]
Death and legacy
Peirce's precise death date and burial place are unknown. He last appeared at a meeting of the Governor's Council in February 1644/45, and his widow remarried in 1646. Since the only records which remain and mention his descendants relate to his wife, his daughter and granddaughter Elizabeth, his relationship with William Pierce who served as a burgess after his death is presumed distant.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pierce, William
People from colonial Virginia
House of Burgesses members
People from James City County, Virginia