Ensign Washer or Ensign Thos (Thomas) Washer was an early Virginia colonist who settled in the area that became

Isle of Wight County, Virginia Isle of Wight County is a county located in the Hampton Roads region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It was named after the Isle of Wight, England, south of the Solent, from where many of its early colonists had come. As of the 2020 census, ...

. Washer and Christopher Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation as burgesses in the first assembly of the

Virginia 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 ...

, the lower house of the colonial

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, 16 ...

, in 1619. "Ensign" is a military grade or rank, not the colonist's first name, and there is some suggestion that he was a lower ranking military officer before he arrived in Virginia. He also would have been a member of the local militia after his arrival in Virginia. Sources seem to be uniform in their identification of Washer as "Ensign" and only one source has been found which states that his name was "Thos" (Thomas). Even if this is true and can be verified, the colonist is shown as Ensign Washer here because that is how he is shown in sources which identify him as a member of the first session of the House of Burgesses. Before 1619, Ensign Washer, Captain Nathaniel Basse and Giles Jones received patents for land along the

Pagan River The Pagan River (Warraskoyak) is a tributary of the James River located in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. The colonial seaport town of Smithfield (and its National Register-listed Smithfield Historic District) sits on the banks of this river. ...

. Captain Christopher Lawne then settled near the mouth of Lawne's Creek in the same vicinity. Although the area was known as Lawne's Plantation and its representatives were listed as representatives from the plantation, the colonists also had named the area "Warresqueak County" after the Native American tribe who lived there. Washer and Christopher Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation in the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619.Stanard, William G. and

Mary Newton Stanard Mary Mann Page Newton Stanard (1865 - June 5, 1929) was an American historian, specializing in the history of Virginia. Born in Westmoreland County, Stanard was the daughter of John Brockenbrough Newton and Roberta Page (Williamson) Newton. She ...

''The Virginia Colonial Register''
Albany, NY: Joel Munsell's Sons Publishers, 1902. , Retrieved July 15, 2011. p. 52 In 1620, a movement began to change the name of "Warresqueak County" to "Isle of Wight County" but this was not done until 1637. The Daughters of the American Revolution state that Ensign Washer had a daughter named Margaret (Polly). Little if anything more is known about Ensign Washer or what may have become of him.Boddie, John Bennett
''Seventeenth century Isle of Wight County, Virginia: a history of the county of Isle of Wight, Virginia, during the seventeenth century, including abstracts of the county records''
Chicago, Chicago Law Print. Co. 1938. . Retrieved July 20, 2011. p. 82 Records do not show him as among the dead of the

Indian massacre of 1622 The Indian massacre of 1622, popularly known as the Jamestown massacre, took place in the English Colony of Virginia, in what is now the United States, on 22 March 1622. John Smith, though he had not been in Virginia since 1609 and was not an e ...

nor do they list him in the muster of 1624. Yet his name survives as a member of the first representative assembly in the areas that would become both the

State of 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 Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are s ...

and the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

Notes

References

* Boddie, John Bennett
''Colonial Surry''
Richmond: Dietz Press, 1948. . Retrieved July 20, 2011. * Boddie, John Bennett
''Seventeenth century Isle of Wight County, Virginia: a history of the county of Isle of Wight, Virginia, during the seventeenth century, including abstracts of the county records''
Chicago, Chicago Law Print. Co. 1938. . Retrieved July 20, 2011. * Daughters of the American Revolution
''National historical magazine''
Volume 71. Published by National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1937. Retrieved July 21, 2011. * Henings, Statutes at Large, shown as Virginia, William Waller Hening, Virginia (Colony)
''The statutes at large: being a collection of all the laws of Virginia''
Volume 1, Richmond, VA: Printed by and for Samuel Pleasants, Junior, printer to the Commonwealth, 1809-1823. . Retrieved July 15, 2011. * Henry, William Wirt. ''The First Legislative Assembly in America.'' I
''Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893''
Washington, Government Printing Office, 1894. . Retrieved July 21, 2011. * McCartney, Martha W
''Virginia immigrants and adventurers, 1607-1635: a biographical dictionary''
Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2007. . * Stanard, William G. and

''The Virginia Colonial Register''
Albany, NY: Joel Munsell's Sons Publishers, 1902. , Retrieved July 15, 2011. * Tyler, Lyon Gardiner i
''Encyclopedia of Virginia biography''
New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1915. . Retrieved July 21, 2011. {{DEFAULTSORT:Washer, Ensign Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown House of Burgesses members Virginia colonial people English emigrants People from Isle of Wight County, Virginia American planters

See also

Notes

References