Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/139

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COLONIAL COUNCILLORS OF STATE


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iiig from I'agan Point Creek, ■"hereafter to be called llanipstead roint,'" to Warruschis- queake river, "hereafter to be called New Town Haven. ■■ due him for "a share ui his adventure." The grant was dated May 2, 1 62 1, in the time of the X'irginia Company, of which Hobson had been a member. When Capt. Hobson died is not known.

Willoughby, Thomas, was a nephew of Sir Percival Willoughby, of Wollaton, who was from Kent, married his relative, the heiress of the W'illoughbys of Wollaton, and had several brothers. At least so runs the family tradition. Thomas was born in 1601, came to \'irginia when he was nine years old. and lived first, in Elizabeth City county, and afterwards in Lower Norfolk. After reach- ing manhood, he was for many years one of the leading merchants of the colony. There is to be found in Sainsbury's "Calendar of Colonial State Papers" (vol. i.) a certificate, dated 1627, by Thomas Willoughby, of Rochester, aged twenty-seven years, in regard to a ship in which he was about to go to \'ir- ginia. There can hardly be a doubt that this was the Virginian returning from a visit to his old home. As soon as he arrived in \'ir- ginia, he was engaged in warfare with the Indians, for on July 4, 1627, Lieut. Pippet and Ensign Willoughby were ordered to attack the Chesapeakes. As "Lieutenant Thomas Willoughby," he was appointed a commis- sioner (justice) for Elizabeth City, on March 26, 162S-29, and again in Feb., 1631-32, and Sept., 1632. On March 11. 1639, "Capt. Thos. Willoughby, Esq.," was presiding jus- tice of Lower Norfolk. He represented the "L'pper Part of Elizabeth City." in the house of burgesses at the session of March. 1629-30, and was again a member for "Water? Creek


and the Cpper I'art of Elizabeth City," in Feb., 1031-32. In Sept., 1O32, he was a bur- gess, but was absent, at least at the beginning of the session, being in England about this time. On Jan. 6, 1639, Willoughby was pres- ent as a member of the council, and on Aug. 9. 1O41, he was again commissioned as a coun- cillor under Gov. Berkeley, and was present at the meetings of Feb., 1644-45, March, 1645- 46, and Oct., 1646. In the last named year he was "high lieutenant" of Norfolk county. He was included in the commission of the council issued by Charles II. at Breda in 1650, but was not among the councillors elected by the house of burgesses in April, 1652. In Nov., 1654, the assembly made the following ord?r: "It is ordered by the present Grand Assembly in the difference between Capt. Thos. Wil- loughby and Bartholomew Hodgskins (Hos- kins) that Hodgskins the then sheriff is noway liable to make Willoughby any satisfaction, and the former proceedings against the said Willoughby were grounded upon very good reasons, because it appeareth that the said Willoughby was not sworn nor acted as a Councillor of this Country before the Levy was made which he refusing to pay, occa- sioned all the damage, which in this petition he doth pretend to." Thomas Willoughby patented large tracts of land in Lower Nor- folk county which his descendants owned for several generations. Part of this estate, Wil- loughby Point, near Norfolk, knowni as the "manor plantation" was until lately the prop- erty of descendants through female lines. The name of Capt. Willoughby's wife is not known, unless, as seems probable, it appears under a patent to him in 1654, when Alice. Thomas and Elizabeth Willoughby are men- tioned as head rights. In the old records of Lower Norfolk is the following: "At a Court