Richard Bennett was born 6 Aug 1609 in Wiceliscombe, Somerset, England. To Thomas Bennett (1570-1616) and Anstine Tomson Spicer (1580-1647).
He arrived in America in 1637, coming to Virginia, where he married Mary Anne Urie (1619-1987) married 1641 in Wright, Virginia. They had 9 known children.
My 11th Great-Grandfather was Governor of Commonwealth & Protectorate of Virginia from 1652-1655.
There are not very many paintings of him.
In 1646 Bennett organized a mercenary Puritan army to assist the exiled governor of Maryland, Leonard Calvert, in ousting a gang of brigands from his capital at Saint Marys City. Many of the mercenaries remained in Maryland and became the vanguard of a vast Puritan migration to that colony during the years between 1648 and 1650. Bennett's commercial and political connections by then included William Claiborne, of Virginia, and Maurice Thompson, the most influential of all the Puritan merchants of London. Throughout the period Bennett engaged in profitable commerce with England and the Netherlands.
On September 26, 1651, the English Council of State appointed Bennett and Claiborne to a four-man commission to force or negotiate the submission of the Chesapeake Bay colonies to the Commonwealth of England. Supported by a Parliamentary fleet, Bennett, Claiborne, and Edmund Curtis, who succeeded to the commission after the other two original members drowned during the transatlantic voyage, accepted Virginia's bloodless capitulation at Jamestown on March 12, 1652, and obtained the surrender of Maryland's leaders two weeks later.
The General Assembly then elected Bennett to the vacant office of governor of Virginia. He served from April 30, 1652, to March 31, 1655, with Claiborne as secretary of the colony. Their administration represented a spectacular temporary triumph for Maurice Thompson's London-based group of mercantile imperialists, which had significantly influenced the Chesapeake's commercial and political evolution since the 1620s. Hoping to achieve the elusive goal of a united, centrally administered Chesapeake, Bennett and Claiborne sought to abrogate Maryland's charter rights to the land north of the Potomac River. By appointing Protestants friendly to Virginia to offices in Maryland and placing like-minded militia colonels on the Council in Jamestown they brought a measure of stability to the Chesapeake. On July 5, 1652. Bennett and a select group of Virginia Puritan émigrés ended a decade of Indian warfare in Maryland by negotiating a comprehensive peace treaty with the powerful Susquehannocks, Claiborne's longtime business partners in the upper Chesapeake beaver trade.
Bennett's ambitious attempts to expand Virginia's political control throughout the Chesapeake region, with unprecedented authority accorded to the House of Burgesses, was a significant milestone, but such profound and rapid change was destined to be short-lived. Given the prevalent revolutionary turmoil in England, Bennett's government lacked the support it needed to withstand either the growing resentment of Virginia's planters toward the new Navigation Acts, designed as they were to terminate the profitable commerce between the colonies and the Netherlands that had helped make men like Bennett wealthy, or the resistance of Catholics and Anglicans to the ideological rigidity of the Puritan leadership in Maryland. The bloody Battle of the Severn on March 25, 1655, fought between the Catholic pro-Calvert forces and Puritans near Bennetts's own lands at Greenbury Point, Maryland, produced such gruesome atrocities that it probably precipitated Bennett's retirement from the governor's office six days later.
It is to Bennett's credit that no such turmoil occurred in Virginia and that even political rivals with religious differences respected the peaceful succession of power at Jamestown. In December 1656 the General Assembly appointed Bennett one of its lobbyists in London, but instead of acting to increase Virginia's power, at Cromwell's instigation he helped negotiate a treaty of November 30, 1657, with Cecil Calvert, second baron Baltimore, that restored Maryland's charter rights and original boundaries. Bennett served again on the governor's Council from 1658 until his death, much of the time during the second administration of his old adversary, Sir William Berkeley. From 1662 to 1672 he also served as the second major general ever appointed in the Virginia militia and helped defend the colony against invasion during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
Bennett's political designs for a greater Virginia were thwarted, but in his personal life he achieved linkages across the many divisions that separated the two Chesapeake colonies. Late in the 1630s he married Maryann Utie, widow of Councillor John Utie. Their only son, Richard Bennett, attended Harvard College, married into a prominent Catholic family in Maryland, resided there for most of his life, and had a namesake son who became one of the wealthiest planters in Maryland. Bennett's daughters chose influential husbands from both colonies. Elizabeth Bennett married Charles Scarburgh, a Puritan from the Virginia Eastern Shore, and Anna Bennett first wed Theodorick Bland, of Virginia, and then married St. Leger Codd, of Northumberland County, Virginia, and Cecil County, Maryland.
Bennett bequeathed 5,300 acres of land on Maryland's Eastern Shore to three of his grandchildren and donated 300 acres to his local parish to be applied "towards the relief of four poor, aged, or impotent persons." Bennett died, probably at Bennett's Choice, between March 15, 1675, when he dated his will, and April 12, 1675, when it was proved in court.
Time Line
August 6, 1609 - Richard Bennett is baptized at Wivelscombe, Somersetshire, England. He is the son of Thomas Bennett, a member of a large family of English merchants who deal exclusively in international trade.
1621 - Edward Bennett, one of the great London and Amsterdam merchants and auditor of the Virginia Company of London, patents a large property called Bennett's Welcome near the former Indian village of Warraskoyack in what will become Isle of Wight County.
1628 - About this year, Richard Bennett travels to Virginia to take over management of Bennett's Welcome from his uncle, Edward Bennett. In the next ten years he will patent more than 2,000 acres of his own and amass more than 7,000 acres in Virginia and Maryland.
1629 - Richard Bennett is elected to the House of Burgesses as a representative from Warrosquyoake.
1631 - Richard Bennett becomes a commissioner for Warrosquyoake.
1640 - Having amassed thousands of acres of land in Virginia and Maryland and imported 600 settlers, many of them Puritans, Richard Bennett establishes a base of political influence.
1642 - Richard Bennett is appointed to the governor's Council. In the same year he patents 2,000 acres along the south bank of the Rappahannock River and recruits three Puritan ministers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to serve the Calvinists of Upper Norfolk County.
1646 - Richard Bennett organizes a mercenary Puritan army to assist the exiled governor of Maryland, Leonard Calvert, in ousting a gang of brigands from his capital at Saint Mary's City.
1648–1650 - A vast Puritan migration to Maryland is led, in part, by a group of Puritan mercenaries who came to the colony in 1646 under the leadership of Richard Bennett.
September 26, 1651 - The English Council of State appoints Richard Bennett and William Claiborne to a four-man commission to force or negotiate the submission of the Chesapeake Bay colonies to the Commonwealth of England.
March 12, 1652 - Supported by a Parliamentary fleet, Richard Bennett, William Claiborne, and Edmund Curtis accept Virginia's bloodless capitulation at Jamestown. Two weeks later they obtain the surrender of Maryland's leaders as well.
July 5, 1652 - Governor Richard Bennett and a select group of Virginia Puritan émigrés end a decade of Indian warfare in Maryland by negotiating a comprehensive peace treaty with the powerful Susquehannocks.
March 25, 1655 - The bloody Battle of the Severn is fought between the Catholic pro-Calvert forces and Puritans near Governor Richard Bennett's own lands at Greenbury Point, Maryland.
March 31, 1655 - Richard Bennett vacates the office of governor of Virginia following the bloody Battle of the Severn, fought near his own lands at Greenbury Point, Maryland.
December 1656 - The General Assembly appoints Richard Bennett one of its lobbyists in London.
November 30, 1657 - Richard Bennett, acting as a lobbyist for the General Assembly in London, helps negotiate a treaty with Cecil Calvert, second baron Baltimore, that restores Maryland's charter rights and original boundaries.
1658–1675 - Richard Bennett serves on the governor's Council, much of the time during the second administration of his old adversary, Sir William Berkeley.
1662–1672 - Richard Bennett serves as the second major general ever appointed in the Virginia militia and helps defend the colony against invasion during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
March 15, 1675 - Richard Bennett dates his will.
April 12, 1675 - Richard Bennett's will is proved in court. He dies sometime between March 15 and this date.
Categories
Governors of Virginia
Colonial History (ca. 1560–1763)
When I was tracing my family tree I was so excited to add him.
Keep on treasure hunting, never know what treasures out there to find.
That picture isn't Bennett. It's Cecil Calvert. See the wikipedia page:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Calvert,_2nd_Baron_Baltimore
See my page for the Bennetts at http://ancestraldata.com/ahnentafel/3755/
Thank you, I will edit
DeleteActually, that page is for his wife. Richard's page is http://ancestraldata.com/ahnentafel/3754/
ReplyDeleteBennett arrived in 1628 and married Mrs. Mary Ann Utie. They had three children. Mary Ann had had children with her first husband, John Utie, but it's uncertain how many, but John, Nathaniel, and George are often cited.