22 Facts About Nathaniel Burwell

Nathaniel Burwell was an American politician and plantation owner.

Nathaniel Burwell was born into the First Families of Virginia and named after his paternal grandfather Nathaniel Burwell, who had inherited the family plantation in Gloucester County.

Nathaniel Burwell's three surviving brothers, as well as several grandsons and great-grandsons were elected to the House of Burgesses when they came of age.

Nathaniel Senior's eldest son Lewis Burwell received his father's Gloucester plantations.

Nathaniel Burwell remarried a year later, to Lucy Page Baylor, who bore another eight children and survived him by decades.

Nathaniel 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.

Nathaniel Burwell won election to the Virginia House of Delegates for two concurrent years, 1778 and 1779, serving alongside William Norvell.

Nathaniel Burwell did not actively debate, but did vote for its ratification.

Nathaniel Burwell led the local James City County militia before the war, but after his wife's death in 1788, spent more and more time with the estates he had inherited from his maternal grandfather in Frederick County, Virginia, not far from the Shenandoah Valley and the Potomac River.

Nathaniel Burwell called the new house about a half mile from the village Carter Hall.

Some daughters contested the will and the estate did not finally settle until 1779, when this Nathaniel Burwell retained almost all the slaves, repurchasing some of the Neck of Land Quarter slaves from the husband of one of his sisters.

Nathaniel Burwell used his excess bran from the mill to feed hogs, and traded in whiskey and firewood, both in great demand.

However, Nathaniel Burwell never chose to manumit any of his slaves.

In 1792 Nathaniel Burwell gave some of his children the James City County plantations and moved the rest of his family and many slaves to his western estates.

In 1804 Nathaniel Burwell turned over the old home plantation in the Tidewater to his eldest son, Carter Nathaniel Burwell III, including twelve taxable slaves.

Major Nathaniel Burwell was in Gloucester County and wrote of a threatened slave insurrection, noting that his men had apprehended and jailed ten slaves for questioning.

Nathaniel Burwell had more than 16 children, including another Nathaniel Burwell who in 1809 bought Saratoga from Gen.

Nathaniel Burwell served as one its justices of the peace at various times, as well as its joint delegate in the Virginia General Assembly with neighboring Warren County.

Nathaniel Burwell's widow remarried but her next husband and a series of administrators ran through those assets, such that the remaining Carter Grove bondspeople were soon hired out or sold, and that property left the Burwell family in 1838.

Nathaniel Burwell, returned to York County and bought out some remaining heirs, and perhaps some slaves.

Nathaniel Burwell had a dozen children, including Private Nathaniel Burwell, who died that fall of wounds incurred fighting for the Confederacy in the Stonewall Brigade at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Three sons of Nathaniel Burwell became Confederate officers, with Robert dying of wounds received at the Battle of Brandy Station, George surviving the war but moving to and dying in Mexico, and sons Philip, John and William surviving and becoming physicians; their youngest brother Thomas became a farmer and inherited Carter Hall.