Nathaniel Burwell

Nathaniel Burwell (April 15, 1750 – March 29, 1814) was an American politician and plantation owner.[1] Burwell wons election to the Virginia House of Delegates as well as the Virginia Ratifying Convention, and also served as the county lieutenant for the James City County militia.

Nathaniel Burwell
BornApril 15, 1750
Carter's Grove
DiedMarch 29, 1814(1814-03-29) (aged 63)
Carter Hall
NationalityAmerican
Spouse(s)Susanna Grymes (1772 - 1788, her death)
Lucy Page Baylor (1789 - 1814, his death)
Children16
Parent(s)Carter Burwell
Lucy Ludwell Grymes
RelativesRobert Carter I (great-grandfather)

Personal life

Burwell was born on April 15, 1750 at Carter's Grove in James City County, Virginia to Carter Burwell and Lucy Ludwell Grymes Burwell.[2] He attended the College of William and Mary and on November 28, 1772 he married Susanna Grymes, with whom he had eight children. Susanna died in 1788 and Burwell married Lucy Page Baylor a year later. They also had eight children together. He died at the home he built, Carter Hall in Millwood, Virginia.[3]

Political career

Burwell took a seat on the James City County Court in 1772 and two years later began serving on the county's Committee of Safety. He won election to the Virginia House of Delegates for two concurrent years, 1778 and 1779. After a gap, Burwell won re-election for a third term during 1782.[2]

Six years later in 1788 he was elected to take part in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, where he did not actively debate the Constitution but did vote for its ratification.[4]

Burwell also controlled the local militia, with the rank of major. During the War of 1812, British ships and troops entered Chesapeake Bay and the waters off Hampton Roads threatening his landholdings, as well as merchant shipping and the state government. In February 1813, Governor Barbour ordered 2000 militiamen into service, concentrated at Norfolk. Burwell was in Gloucester County and wrote of a threatened slave insurrection, noting that his men had apprehended and jailed ten slaves for questioning.[5]

Death, family and legacy

This Nathaniel Burwell died at Carter Hall, which his father had built and is now part of Colonial Williamsburg and the National Register of Historic Places on March 29, 1814, and was later re-buried at the Old Chapel Cemetery in Millwood in what became Clarke County, Virginia relatively near the Potomac River. His gravestone notes his military rank as "Colonel" and noted that he donated the land for the chapel and graveyard (now also on the National Register of Historic Places. He had more than 16 children, including another Nathaniel Burwell (1779-1849). Another veteran Nathaniel Burwell, also of the Burwell Family of Virginia was born in King Mill in King William County, Virginia in 1750, married Martha Diggs and died in Vermont Place, King William County, Virginia in 1801.

Further reading
  • "Letter of Col. Nathaniel Burwell". The William and Mary Quarterly. 7 (1): 43–45. 1898. doi:10.2307/1919914. JSTOR 1919914.

References
  1. Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia. Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates. 1827. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  2. Brown Jr., Stuart E. "Nathaniel Burwell (1750–1814)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  3. The Burwells of “Glenvin” (not “Carter Hall”), and one of the real “Undefeated” | Cenantua's Blog Retrieved 2018-05-03.
  4. "VIRGINIA RATIFYING CONVENTION JOURNAL, JUNE 25, 1788". Virginia Memory. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  5. Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia 1772-1832 (W.W. Norton Co., 2013 p. 155
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