40 Fun Facts About House of Burgesses

George Washington won a House of Burgesses seat in 1758 after his campaign gave Frederick County voters free what?

Alcohol flowed freely on election day: his campaign manager handed voters well over a hundred gallons of drink. Washington himself was away serving with his regiment.

Craftsmen of which nationality are said to have gone on strike at Jamestown in 1619 to win the vote?

Polish artisans, brought over to make pitch, tar and soap ash, are said to have downed tools when the first election left them out. Company records show the dispute ended with them made as free as any settler.

Virginia's first assembly closed in early August 1619, weeks before which group's first arrival at nearby Point Comfort?

Enslaved Africans, some twenty captives from Angola, came ashore in the colony in late August 1619. Representative government and slavery arrived in the same summer.

In what kind of building at Jamestown did Virginia's first elected assembly gather in the summer of 1619?

A church was simply the most convenient place the members could find to sit. The wooden building measured about 50 feet by 20.

Where did Virginia's burgesses regroup in 1769 and 1774 after royal governors dissolved their Williamsburg sessions?

A tavern called the Raleigh took them in. Meeting in its Apollo Room, the ousted members agreed to stop importing British goods.

The first Capitol built for Virginia's burgesses in Williamsburg went up without which common feature?

Fireplaces were left out because flames had destroyed earlier statehouses. Chimneys were added in 1723 to keep the place dry, and the building burned in 1747 anyway.

Which single Latin word closes the final 1776 entry in the journals of the House of Burgesses?

Finis, meaning the end, closes the entry for May 6, 1776. The members had gathered one last time and simply chose not to adjourn, letting the old House expire.

Which widower of Pocahontas sat on the governor's council when Virginia's first assembly met in 1619?

John Rolfe sat with the appointed councillors, not the elected burgesses. Pocahontas had been buried in England two years before the assembly met.

The first tax approved by Virginia's assembly in 1619 was paid not in coin but in a pound of what?

Tobacco served as cash in the young colony. Every man and servant owed one pound of the best leaf to pay the assembly's officers for their work.

Virginia's first elected assembly met more than a year before which famous ship anchored off Cape Cod?

The Mayflower did not reach New England until November 1620. By then Virginia's burgesses had already met, passed laws and levied a tax.

Which newly elected burgess drew cries of treason in 1765 after likening George III to Caesar and Charles I?

Patrick Henry had been a burgess for just nine days. His resolutions against a new British tax passed anyway, and newspapers carried them through the colonies.

The Virginia Resolves, passed by the House of Burgesses in May 1765, denounced which new British tax law?

The Stamp Act taxed newspapers, legal papers and even playing cards. Papers across the colonies printed the resolves, including radical ones the House never passed.

Which future president, then a young lawyer from Albemarle County, sat in the House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1775?

Thomas Jefferson had watched debates from the doorway as a student before winning a seat of his own. His first session ended abruptly when the governor dissolved the House.

Which last speaker of the House of Burgesses went on to preside over the First Continental Congress?

Peyton Randolph also chaired the early gatherings the burgesses held on their own after the governor sent them home. He briefly presided over the Second Continental Congress too.

After the House of Burgesses ended in 1776, Virginia's lower chamber was renamed the House of what?

Delegates has been the title ever since. Counting its years as the burgesses, the chamber is considered the oldest continuous lawmaking body in the New World.

To which city did Virginia's legislature move in 1780, leaving Williamsburg for safety during the Revolutionary War?

Richmond has been the capital ever since. By tradition, the modern legislature has returned to the rebuilt Williamsburg Capitol for one-day ceremonial sessions.

What was Williamsburg called before Virginia's assembly made the settlement the colonial capital in 1699?

Middle Plantation sat on high ground between the James and York rivers. The assembly renamed it to honor the reigning English king.

Which royal governor dissolved the House of Burgesses in 1774 and became Virginia's last governor under the Crown?

Lord Dunmore fled to a British warship in June 1775 while the burgesses were holding their last working session. He never governed from Williamsburg again.

What did the burgesses declare for June 1, 1774, in sympathy with Boston, prompting the governor to dissolve them?

A day of fasting and prayer was set for the date Boston's port was due to close. Sent home by the governor, the members carried on meeting unofficially.

Which rebel leader, elected a burgess for Henrico County in 1676, saw his followers burn Jamestown that year?

Nathaniel Bacon's threats pushed that June's session to make him general of a 1,000-man army. It also widened the vote, but the king later ordered its laws repealed.

Which governor let the burgesses sit apart from his council in the 1640s, turning Virginia's assembly into two houses?

William Berkeley hoped to win the planters as allies against rivals on his council. He later kept one House sitting from 1661 to 1676 without a general election.

Which former member of Parliament served as speaker of Virginia's first assembly in 1619?

John Pory was the only man present who had sat in Parliament, so he set the rules of procedure. He doubled as the colony's secretary.

Which governor arrived in 1619 with orders to end martial law and summon Virginia's first elected assembly?

George Yeardley called for two burgesses from each of the colony's eleven settlements. He sat with them himself, alongside his council.

By what name are the Virginia Company's 1618 instructions, which authorized the colony's first assembly, usually known?

The Great Charter replaced years of military rule with a governor, an advisory council and an elected assembly. The burgesses formally approved it at their first session.

What did the Virginia Company's 1618 instructions promise settlers who paid their own passage to the colony?

Fifty acres went to each newcomer who paid his own way, making settlers owners rather than tenants. Such grants became known as headrights.

Which Atlantic island colony, also settled by the Virginia Company, held its own assembly's first session in 1620?

Bermuda's House of Assembly was created at the same time as Virginia's and still sits, which puts both among the oldest legislatures in the Americas.

In 1634 Virginia's General Assembly divided the colony into eight of which English-style units, later renamed counties?

Shires were set up to handle local administration and courts. Each county later sent two burgesses to the assembly, so every new county meant new seats.

Whose parliamentary forces compelled Virginia to submit in 1652, though the colony kept its elected assembly?

Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth left the burgesses stronger than ever: for a few years they chose the governor and his council themselves.

What had Speaker John Robinson secretly done with retired paper money, as Virginians learned after his death in 1766?

Lent it to friends: more than £100,000 in notes he was supposed to burn. After the scandal, the posts of speaker and treasurer were never combined again.

Which English architect's name is attached to the college building where the burgesses met from 1700 to 1704?

Christopher Wren is often credited with the original design. The burgesses moved back into the building when their Capitol burned in 1747.

Which school, given its own seat in the House of Burgesses in 1693, is America's second-oldest college?

William and Mary sent its own burgess alongside those from the counties. Its main hall also housed the lawmakers twice while a Capitol was being built or rebuilt.

The 1772 burning of which British revenue schooner led the burgesses to set up a committee of correspondence?

The Gaspee had been enforcing customs rules off Rhode Island when local men set it alight. The alarmed burgesses named eleven members to write to the other colonies.

Which royal governor dissolved the House of Burgesses in 1769, yet was honored by the assembly with a marble statue?

Lord Botetourt was still in office at his death in 1770, and his statue stood in the Capitol by 1773. It was later moved to the nearby college.

Which industrial heir bankrolled the 1930s reconstruction of the Williamsburg Capitol where the burgesses once met?

John D. Rockefeller Jr. paid to restore the whole colonial town. The rebuilt Capitol has now stood longer than the two originals served as Virginia's capitol combined.

Which veteran burgess and Declaration signer was father of one U.S. president and great-grandfather of another?

Benjamin Harrison spent about three decades in the House. His son and great-grandson both reached the White House, the younger one sharing his name.

What happened to burgess Walter Shelley on the third day of Virginia's sweltering first assembly in 1619?

He died mid-session, and the journal simply recorded him as deceased. The weather was unbearably hot, and the members wound up their business early.

Besides drunkenness and idleness, which vice did Virginia's first assembly pass measures against in 1619?

Gambling drew one of the session's morality laws, alongside rules on swearing. The members also made attendance at worship compulsory.

From 1670, what did a free man in Virginia have to own before he could vote for his burgesses?

Land ownership remained the test even after independence. A reforming session repealed the rule in 1676, until the king struck down that session's laws.

The Williamsburg Capitol, with the House of Burgesses in one wing, was laid out in the shape of which letter?

H is the shape: two wings joined by an arcade, one for the burgesses and the other for the governor's council and the General Court.

The word burgess originally meant a freeman of which kind of self-governing English community?

A borough was a town with its own privileges, and its burgesses could sit in Parliament. Virginia borrowed the title for the men its settlements elected.