George Yeardley was among the first slaveowners in Colonial America.
11 Facts About George Yeardley
1.
2.
George Yeardley was the son of Ralph Yeardley, a London merchant-tailor, and Rhoda Marston.
3.
George Yeardley chose not to follow his father into trade, but instead became a soldier and joined a company of English foot-soldiers to fight the Spanish in the Netherlands.
4.
George Yeardley ordered Captain Yeardley to command his soldiers to guard the town preventing settlers from setting fire to the structures that were evacuated.
5.
George Yeardley led the first representative Virginia General Assembly, the legislative House of Burgesses, to meet on American soil.
6.
George Yeardley owned another private plantation upriver on the south side of the James River opposite Tanks Weyanoke, named Flowerdew Hundred, and owned several enslaved persons.
7.
In 1621 George Yeardley paid 120 pounds to build the first windmill in British America.
8.
In other words, both of George Yeardley's plantations were named in honor of his wealthy in-laws.
9.
George Yeardley was one of the few survivors of the Starving Time.
10.
George Yeardley is buried in Third Jamestown Church at Jamestown, Virginia.
11.
Ground-penetrating radar confirmed the presence of a skeleton of the right age and build for George Yeardley who died in 1627, aged about 40.