William Farrar (April 1583 –
c. 1637) was a landowner and politician in
colonial Virginia. He was a subscriber to the third charter of the
Virginia Company who immigrated to the colony from
England in 1618. After surviving the
Jamestown massacre of 1622, he moved to
Jordan's Journey. In the following year, Farrar became involved in North America's first breach of promise suit when he proposed to
Cecily Jordan.
In 1626, Farrar was appointed to the
Council of Virginia where he served as an advisor to the royal governor, a judge of the highest court in the colony, and a member of the
Virginia General Assembly of
Colonial Jamestown. He was also appointed magistrate of the upper James River community. In both these roles, he served as a voice of the early planters' interest as the colony transitioned from being managed by the Virginia Company and becoming a royal colony under
Charles I of England.
Farrar was also on the Council when it arrested Governor
John Harvey for misgovernance and forced his temporary return to England. By the time of his death around 1637, Farrar had sold off his remaining assets in England and established rights to a 2000 acre patent on
Farrar's Island, located on a curl of the James River.
Relation to the Virginia Company and immigration to the New World
When Farrar went to Virginia, it was still part of the
Virginia Company of London, a
joint-stock company, sanctioned by
Royal Charter.[10] Farrar was a subscriber to the Third Charter of the Virginia Company,[11] where his name appears as "William Ferrers".[12] His subscription consisted of three shares that were bought for a total of £37 10s (equivalent to about $13,500 today).[note 2][9] Farrar also had family interests in the Virginia Company as two of his second cousins,[7] the brothers
John Ferrar and
Nicholas Ferrar, played key roles in the managing the company's interests.[14]: 60
Farrar left London on Neptune[15]: 209 on March 16, 1617/18 [note 3][16] along with Virginia's governor,
Thomas West, Baron De La Warr. De La Warr had been commissioned by the Virginia Company to return to the colony with fresh people and supplies to help it achieve political and economic stability,[17]: 375–384 but he died en route.[18] When Farrar arrived in August 1618,[15]: 209 news of the governor's death threw
Jamestown into turmoil, Deputy Governor
Samuel Argall, who was already unpopular with many colonists, was accused of mismanagement and the unauthorized misappropriation of Neptune's passengers and cargo.[19] After a prolonged series of accusations from both the Virginia Company and colonists against Argall's governing, he finally stepped down in April 1619.[20]
In June 1619, the Virginia Company instructed that 40
indentured servants be put at the disposal of Farrar when they arrived in Virginia.[21]: 145 The payment for the cost of transporting these colonists would have resulted in a 2000 acre
headright at 50 acres a head.[22] However, Garland never arrived in Jamestown because it was damaged in a hurricane while en route.[23] Instead of proceeding to Virginia, the Garland's captain, William Wye left the remaining passengers in
Bermuda and sailed the repaired ship directly back to England.[14]: 325
As his personal headright, Farrar did receive a
land patent for 100 acres on the
Appomattox River close to where it flows into the
James River, near what is now known as
Hopewell, Virginia.[24]: 554 In the meantime, the resultant legal suits between Wye and the Virginia Company regarding the financial responsibility for the Garland fiasco were not resolved until the end of 1622,[21]: 701–702[23] when Farrar had already quit residence at his patent as a result of the
Powhatan surprise attack of 1621/22.
During the Powhatan surprise attack, ten settlers on Farrar's land on the Appomattox River were killed.[21]: 566 However, Farrar survived and got to
Samuel Jordan's settlement at
Beggars Bush,[25] part of the plantation known as
Jordan's Journey. After the attack, William Farrar stayed at Jordan's Journey[26]: 290–291 as it had become a relatively safe fortified rallying place for the survivors.[27]
Samuel Jordan died before June 1623.[28]: 46 Sometime afterward, Farrar proposed marriage to Jordan's pregnant widow,
Cecily, which involved him in the
first breach of promise suit filed in North America.[9]: 891[29] Reverend Greville Pooley claimed he had first proposed marriage three or four days after Samuel Jordan had died and Cecily had accepted.[24] However, Cecily denied his proposal and accepted Farrar's, which resulted in Pooley filing the suit.[30] The case continued for almost two years. During the suit, Alexander Brown suggests that Farrar may have acted as Cecily's legal representative.[9] Eventually, Pooley signed an agreement in January 1624/5 that acquitted Cecily Jordan of her alleged former promises.[31]: 42
Even as the case was ongoing, William Farrar and Cecily Jordan continued to work together at Jordan's Journey. In November 1623, Farrar was
bonded to execute Samuel Jordan's will regarding the management of his estate and Cecily Jordan was warranted to put down the security to guarantee Farrar's bondage.[31]: 8 During this time, "Farrar assumed the role of plantation 'commander' or 'head of hundred'"[32]: 10 for Jordan's Journey. A year later, the Jamestown muster of 1624/25 lists "fferrar William mr & Mrs. Jordan"[sic] as sharing the head of a Jordan's Journey household with three daughters and ten manservants.[15]: 209–210 During this time, Jordan's Journey prospered.[33]: 67–68 By May 1625 Farrar and Jordan were finally married, as it was then that Farrar was released from his bond to Jordan's estate.[31]: 57They had three children together: Cecily (born 1625), William (birth year uncertain),[note 4] and John (born around 1632).[2]
Farrar became a councillor during a period of uncertainty for the colonists.[26]: 13, 35 The
1619 Great Charter of the Virginia Company had established self-governance through the
Virginia Assembly, but
James I dissolved the charter in 1624, and put the colony under direct royal authority. Just before James I died in March 1625, Charles I announced his intention to be the sole
factor of his
royal colonies.[37] To this end, he commissioned a new structure, consisting of a governor,
Sir George Yeardley, and 13 councillors, including William Farrar, to govern the royal colony on behalf of the Crown's interest.[35] Because the assembly was not included in the commission, the Council was the only legal body representing the interests of the Virginia planters.[38]: 180 This state of affairs continued until the petitions of the colonists allowed the continuance of the
House of Burgesses and the re-convention of the Virginia Assembly in 1628.[39] The Council also functioned as the highest court in Virginia and as the advisory board to the governor regarding the creation of legislative acts. Just as importantly, the members of the Council could determine the fate of the governor. Farrar was on the Council when it elected
John Pott as governor in 1628.[38]: 182 He was also on the Council [40] when it temporarily deported Governor Harvey in 1635.[41][42] Harvey's silencing of Farrar when he questioned the governor's proceedings with the council initiated the protest that eventually led to the governor's arrest and expulsion.[43]
In August 1626, Farrar was also appointed by Yeardley as commissioner (i.e.,
magistrate) of the "Upper Partes"[sic] which lies along the James River west of
Piersey's Hundred having jurisdiction over
Charles City and
the City of Henrico. Farrar was the head commissioner of six commissioners appointed: he was the one given the right of final judgement when present and allowed the discretion to hold monthly courts at either Jordan's Journey or
Shirley Hundred.[31]: 106 When his commission was renewed by Governor
Sir John Harvey in 1632, it also mandated that the court could only be in session when Farrar was present.[44]: 168
After 1619, settlers could purchase the cost of transporting white
indentured servants from England to the New World as a contract that could be redeemed as a headright, and these headright contracts could be used for
speculation[45] by being sold, bought,[46] or
bartered.[47] William Farrar was one of the settlers involved in this activity.[48] For example, he is listed in patents as selling headrights to the settler William Andrewes around 1628[49]: 13 and surrendering land to Nathan Martin for the transport of servants in 1636.[49]: 41
Sale of inheritance
When William Farrar's father, John the elder, died sometime before May 1628, he willed his various landholdings in Hertfordshire to William. In addition, John Farrar also stipulated that William and his family receive a £20 annuity from his older brother from rents in Halifax Parish, Yorkshire and that William receive £50 upon his return to England.[4] In 1631, William Farrar returned to England to claim his inheritance.[26] He then sold the assets from his inheritance to his brothers, including his annuity for £240 and his landholdings for £200, for a total of £440 (equivalent to about $158,000 today)[50] and returned to Virginia.
Farrar's Island
At the time of his death sometime before June 11, 1637, Farrar was described as being "of
Henrico",[49] one of eight
shires established in Virginia three years previously.[44]: 224 By the time of his death, he had established his headright to a 2000 acre land patent at a site that included
Dutch Gap and the former settlement of
Henrico. This headright was given for 40 indentured servants, who were named in the patent.[note 5] After Farrar's death, the headright was repatented to his oldest son,[52] his namesake who was twelve years old at the time, by John Harvey, who had returned from England and resumed his role as governor of the colony.[53]
The patent was issued for land that included a peninsula formed by
meander loop, or curl,[54] of the James River subsequently known as
Farrar's Island. It is described in the patent as abutting the
glebe lands of
Varina in the east, and extending to the James River in the south, the end of the island (i.e., peninsula) in the west, and "to the woods" in the north.[49] Farrar's Island remained with the Farrar family until it was sold in 1727.[55][56]
Notes
^Brown may be referring to William Ferrar, a younger brother of John and Nicholas Ferrar. Farrar was mistakenly identified as William Ferrar until the twentieth century.[7] The brother of Nicholas and John was born around 1590, went to Cambridge, studied law at
Middle Temple in London and became a
barrister in 1618. He set off for Virginia around 1619 but died on the way.[8]
^For another comparison of the share's value, the entire annual wages of a skilled
journeyman in London around 1588 was authorized to be between £4 and £10. [13]
^
abCook, Mrs. Henry Lowell; Bulkley, Louis C. (1942). Torrence, Clayton (ed.). "English Ancestry of William Farrar (1594-C.1637), of Henrico County, Virginia". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 50 (4): 350–359.
JSTOR4245205. (
registration required)
^Wolfe, Brenden (November 16, 2016).
"Virginia Company of London". Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
Archived from the original on August 13, 2018. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
^Bemiss, Samuel M., ed. (1957).
"Third Charter". The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London with Seven Related Documents. Williamsburg, VA: Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation. p. 7.
^
abcdHotten, John Camden (1874).
"Musters of the Inhabitants of Virginia, 1624/25". The Original Lists of Persons of Quality, Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. New York, NY: Empire State Book. pp. 201–274.
^Kolb, Avery E. (1980). "Early passengers to Virginia: When did they really arrive?". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 88 (4): 401–414.
JSTOR4248428. (
registration required)
^Fausz, J. Frederick (July 8, 2013).
"Samuel Argall (bap. 1580-1626)". Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities.
Archived from the original on January 15, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
^Wolfe, Brendan; McCartney, Martha (October 28, 2015).
"Indentured Servants in Colonial Virginia". Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities.
Archived from the original on December 13, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
^
abStanard, William G., ed. (1906). "Commission to Governor Yeardley and Council, March 14 1625-6". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 13 (3): 298–302.
JSTOR4242747.
^Bruce, Philip A., ed. (1894).
"Mutiny in Virginia, 1635". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 1 (4): 419.
^Tarter, Brent (March 13, 2017).
"Sir John Harvey (ca. 1581 or 1582–by 1650)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
^
abSouthall, James P. C. (1943). "Links in a Chain". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 51 (4): 386.
JSTOR4245260.(
registration required)
^
abcdNugent, Nell Marion (1934).
"Patent Book No. 1". Cavaliers and Pioneers, a Calendar of Land Grants 1623-1800. Vol. 1. Richmond, VA: Dietz Press.
^Sale of William Farrar's Inheritance”recorded at the
Public Record Office: London, Calendar of
Close Rolls. Vol 54/2904, cited in Holmes, Alvahn (1972). The Farrar's Island Family and its English Ancestry. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press. p. 31.
OCLC499544604.
Holmes, Alvahn (1972). The Farrar's Island Family and its English Ancestry. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press.
OCLC499544604.
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"The Farrar Family". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 7 (3): 319–322. 1900.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 7 (4): 432–434. 1900.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 8 (1): 97–98. 1900.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 8 (2): 206–209. 1900.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 8 (4): 424–427. 1901.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 9 (2): 203–205. 1901.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 9 (3): 322–324. 1902.
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"The Farrar Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 10 (1): 86–87. 1902.
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