100
VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
cudgel. This disgraceful act was one of the
charges made against Harvey when he was
sent to England for trial, but he sought to
excuse himself by saying that it did not occur
in the council, and that Stephens had assailed
him with "ill language." Stephens does not
stem to have lived many years after this.
From the land patents it appears that the wife
oi' Councillor Richard Stephens was Elizabeth,
daughter of Abraham Piersey, formerly of the
council. She took for a second husband, in
oi before 1642, Sir John Harvey, the same
who had deprived her first consort of his teeth.
In September of that year Captain De Wies,
the Dutch trader, brought suit against the
estate of Richard Stephens for £4.14, due "for
goods sold Lady Harvey," who, it w^as ex-
plained, was at that time the wife of Stephens.
Richard and Elizabeth Stephens had at least
one child, a son Samuel. On Jan. 20, 1644-
45, Dame Elizabeth Harvey petitioned the
court to substitute Richard Kemp and Capt.
William Pierce as trustees in place of Capt.
Samuel Mathews, George Ludlow and Capt.
Thomas Bernard, "former trustees under a
ftofifment made by the same Dame Elizabeth
to Samuel Stephens, Gent., her son by a for-
mer marriage." The son, Samuel Stephens,
of "Bolthorpe," Warwick county, was gov-
ernor of Carolina, and died in 1670, leaving
nr children. His will was dated April 21,
1^)70. Gov. Samuel Stephens married Fran-
ces Culpeper, sister of Alexander Culpeper,
afterwards surveyor-general of \'irginia. In
the diary of Mrs. Thornton, published by the
Surtees Society, are several notices of the mar-
riage in \'irginia, about 1650, of the heir of
the Danby family in Yorkshire to a Miss Cul-
peper. The editor states that she was a niece
of Lord Culpeper. lord chancellor of England,
and it seems highly probably that she was a
sister of Frances Culpeper. Mrs. Frances
Stephens married secondly, in June, 1670. Sir
William Berkeley, governor of v'irginia, whom
she seems to have ruled with as high a hand
a< he showed the colony, and thirdly, some-
time in 1680, Col. Philip Ludwell, of "Rich-
neck," James City county, Virginia. She had
no children by either marriage.
Basse, Nathaniel, with Sir Richard Worse- ley, John Hobson, gentleman, and others, asso- ciates of Capt. Christopher Lawne, deceased, presented a petition on June, 28, 1620, to the \'irginia Company, and received a confirma- tion of an old patent and plantation, and that said plantation should be henceforth called the Isle of Wight's plantation. The tract was situated in the present Isle of Wight county, which took its name from the plantation, as did Lawne's creek from the first settler there. Sir Richard Worseley, and probably the other men interested in the enterprise also, lived in the Isle of Wight, England. On Jan. 30, 1621- 22, Capt. Xathaniel Basse and his associates received a patent on condition that they would transport 100 persons to X'irginia. Basse was a member of the house of burgesses for Wor- lesqueiacke from 1623-24 to 1629, and was a councillor in Feb., 1631-32, at which time he was authorized to go to Xew England and offer the inhabitants a place of settlement on Delaware Bay. The name of his plantation was "Basse's Choice."
Purefoy, Thomas, Pur fry, F'urfee or Pur- fury, as the name is variously spelt, was born about 1582 and came to X'irginia in the ship "George" in 1621. In 1625, when he is styled Lieut. Thomas Purefoy, he was living in Efiz- abeth City, and in 1628, was chief commander ar.d one of the commissioners of that place. On July 4. 1627, the governor and council
