Content deleted Content added
mNo edit summary |
mNo edit summary |
||
Line 49:
Young Thoroughgood was from a prominent family in [[King's Lynn]], [[Norfolk]], England, the ninth son of the Rector of Grimston, Rev. William Thorowgood. He was baptized at St. Botolph's Church in Grimston on July 14, 1604 [''citation needed'']. Early in his life he became interested in immigrating to the Americas when he heard about exploits in Virginia from some of the members of [[Henry Spelman of Jamestown|Henry Spelman]]'s family who lived in Congham, a mile to the north of Grimston. At the age of 17, he became an [[indentured servant]] in order to pay for passage to the Virginia Colony, a project of the [[Virginia Company of London]] at the time. Around 1622, he settled in an area south of the [[Chesapeake Bay]] and a few miles inland from the [[Atlantic Ocean]]. This area had been passed by when the earlier settlements of the London Colony such as [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]] were established beginning in 1607 in favor of locations further inland which would be less susceptible to attacks by other European forces, such as the Spanish.<ref>Bellamy, Joe Davis [https://books.google.com/books?id=XggfG3i-8pIC&source=gbs_navlinks_s ''The Bellamys of Early Virginia''] (iUniverse, 2005). p. 31.</ref>
Having served his period of indenture, Adam returned to England, only to return to Virginia with a wife and 105 men. He was granted a large landholding and became a leading citizen of the area. He was elected to the [[House of Burgesses]] in 1629, 1629–1630 and 1632<ref>Stanard, William G. and Mary Newton Stanard. [https://books.google.com/books?id=WaA-AAAAYAAJ ''The Virginia Colonial Register'']. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell's Sons Publishers, 1902. {{OCLC|253261475}}, Retrieved July 15, 2011. pp. 54–56. Thoroughgood was not a member in two other sessions in the early 1630s. No list of the members for the assemblies of 1633, 1634 and 1635 was found by the Stanards.</ref>
The London Company lost its charter in 1624 and Virginia became a royal colony. In 1634, the colony was divided into [[shire]]s, a term still in use in Virginia 350 years later, and was soon renamed [[County (United States)|counties]]. Adam is credited with using his place of birth in England when helping name [[New Norfolk County]] when it was formed from [[Elizabeth City County, Virginia|Elizabeth City County]] in 1637. From New Norfolk County, there were several additional smaller entities formed including, most notably [[Norfolk County, Virginia|Norfolk County]], which existed from 1691 to 1963 and is now the [[Chesapeake, Virginia|City of Chesapeake]], and most famously, Lower Norfolk County which became the modern [[Norfolk, Virginia|City of Norfolk]].
| |||