2723 1081870-190 Terms of the Executives of the Colony of Virginia.. These are given in the order of terms of service, as follows: Sir Thomas These are given in order of terms of service, as follows: Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, William Fleming, Thomas Nelson, Benj. Harrison, Edmund Randolph, Beverly Randolph, Henry Lee, Robert Brooke, James Wood, James Monroe, John Page, William H. Cabell, John Tyler, George William Smith, Peyton Randolph, James Barbour, Wilson Cary Nicholas, James Patton Preston, Thomas Mann Randolph, James Pleasants, John Tyler, William Branch Giles, John Floyd, Littleton Waller Tazewell, Wyndham Robertson, David Campbell, Thomas Walker Gilmer, John Mercer Patton, John Rutherfoord, John Munford Gregory, James McDowell, William Smith, John Buchanan Floyd, Joseph Johnson, Henry Alexander Wise, John Letcher, Francis H. Pierpont, Henry H. Wells, Gilbert Carleton Walker, James Lawson Kemper, Frederick William Mackey Holliday, William Ewan Cameron. Sketches of Ambrose Powell Hill, Robert Edward Lee, Thomas Jonathan REFERENCE EMINENT VIRGINIANS. EXECUTIVES OF VIRGINIA, 1606-1889. EXPLANATORY NOTE. For a due understanding of the status of the several and successive executives of Virginia from its settlement, some explanation seems necessary. It may be thus concisely given: By the charter of the London Company for Virginia, from King James the First, of England, dated April the 10th, 1606, under which colonization was first effected, the chief direction of the affairs of the colony was vested in a Council in England, appointed by the King. They, in turn, named the resident Councillors in the Colony-each body electing its Executive or President. This plan was modified somewhat under a second charter granted the Company May the 23d, 1609, by which it was empowered to choose the Supreme Council in England, and under its instructions and regulations a Governor was provided, invested with absolute civil and military authority, with the title of "Governor and Captain General of Virginia." The resident Council was still retained. In the absence of the Governor-inChief, authority was vested in an appointed Deputy, or LieutenantGovernor, or, in the absence of such officer, in the President of the Council. Upon the annulling of the charter of the London Company, and its dissolution July the 15th, 1624, the King henceforth appointed the Governor-in-Chief, who, however, but rarely resided in the Colony, his functions there being exercised by a Deputy, or Lieutenant-Governor. The resident Council was continued, being appointed by the King on the recommendation of the Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor. This mode obtained whilst Virginia remained a British Colony. The salary of the resident Governor in 1670, then Sir William Berkeley, was £1,200. In 1754 the salary of the Governor-in-Chief was £2,000, of which he retained £1,200, paying his Deputy, the Lieutenant-Governor residing in Virginia, £800. Upon the rupture with the mother country, Lord Dunmore, the last royal Governor, having fled from Williamsburg, the seat of government, in June, 1775, a recently dissolved Assembly met in Convention in the town of Richmond, July the 17th following, and organized a provisional form of government and plan of defence, with a Committee of Safety consisting of Edmund Pendleton, George Mason, John Page, Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, James Mercer, Carter Braxton, William Cabell and John Tabb. A succeeding general Convention met by appointment at Williamsburg, May the 6th, 1776, and on the 29th of June following adopted a State Constitution which provided a Council of State, and a Governor, with a salary of £1,000, to be elected annually by a joint ballot of the Assembly. It is of interest to note in exhibition of the depreciation of the currency of the period that the salary of the Governor was successively increased until in October, 1779, it was made £7,500, and in May, 1780, because of the instability of the currency, was fixed in the primitive medium of Virginia and paid in 60,000 pounds of tobacco. In November, 1781, the amount was restored to £1,000, payable in specie, and this, or its equivalent in decimal currency$3,333.33 continued to be the salary until by act of the Assembly of June the 5th, 1852, it was increased to $5,000. In 1781 the term of the Governor was made three years. Under the amended Constitution of Virginia, of 1851, the Council of State was abolished and the Governor made elective by popular vote. Upon the surrender by General R. E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, April the 9th, 1865, Virginia was under martial law until May the 9th following, when, under proclamation of President Andrew Johnson, Governor Francis H. Pierpoint assumed the government, which he held, provisionally, until April the 16th, 1868, when he was superseded by Henry H. Wells, under the military appointment of General John M. Schofield, commanding the First Military District, comprising Virginia. A State Convention met at Richmond in December, 1867, and framed a new Constitution, which, having been adopted by a vote of the people on the 6th of July, 1869, the State was re-admitted to the Union, and a Governor-Gilbert C. Walker-elected, who took his seat January the 1st, 1870, for a term of four years. 1606, EXECUTIVES. -Sir Thomas Smyth, or Smith, first President of the 1607, April 26-Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, President of the Council in Virginia. 1607, Sept. 10-Captain John Ratcliffe, President of the Council in Virginia. 1608, Sept. 7-Captain John Smith, President of the Council in Vir ginia. |