This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ...after the Norman invasion; and at the origin of surnames, a comparatively recent period, took, after the English fashion, the names of the places near which they dwelt. We thus lean to the opinion that the race is Saxon. The same remark about the hereditary traits and tastes of families will apply to ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ...after the Norman invasion; and at the origin of surnames, a comparatively recent period, took, after the English fashion, the names of the places near which they dwelt. We thus lean to the opinion that the race is Saxon. The same remark about the hereditary traits and tastes of families will apply to the Randolphs. William Randolph, of Turkey Island, from whom all the Virginia Randolphs spring, came over to the colony about a quarter of a century earlier than Commissary Blair; and, like nearly all of the early colonists, however well they were connected in England, was in narrow circumstances. His first object was to acquire a competent fortune, and to marry a wife whose relationship in the Colony and in England was equal to his own. As soon as these objects were accomplished, as if inspired with a desire to maintain the reputation which his ancestors in England and Scotland had enjoyed immemorially, and especially in the reign of Elizabeth, he entered the House of Burgesses, of which he was Speaker during one session, was in due time chosen of the Council, and, like James and John Blair, Sr., became the President of the body, and was ex-officio, in the absence of the royal representative, the Governor of the Colony. He had a large number of children, and educated his sons as carefully as if he lived in the shadow of Eton or of Harrow. His son John, who had been educated at William and Mary, and at the Temple, was soon at the head of the colonial bar, was a member of the House of Burgesses, was. Attorney General, and finally Speaker of the House of Burgesses and Treasurer; and was the only person in the Colony, from the settlement at Jamestown to the Declaration of Independence, who received from the King the dignity of knighthood. He too...
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