3:3 The Bacon Family
Sir James Bacon of Friston Hall, Suffolk
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A valuable chart was drawn up and published in a book called Winston of Virginia and Allied Families by Clayton Torrence, 1927, p 371 and the information was compiled from notes given in Keith's Ancestry of Benjamin Harrison (p. 22-26), the Registers of Burgate, Suffolk 1630-1650, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol II p 125, the wills of the Bacon family of England, the will of Anthony Smith and the will of the Hon. Nathaniel Bacon (1620-1692) of Virginia. It shows both the ancestry and the line of descent of the sons of Elizabeth Bacon, the daughter of Francis Bacon and Elizabeth, daughter of ____Cotton of Barton, Suffolk and her husband Sir James Bacon of Friston Hall, Suffolk, the son of James Bacon, Alderman and Fishmonger of London and his wife Margaret Rawlings, the daughter of William Rawlings, a merchant of London. Some of their descendants went to Virginia.
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Reverend James Bacon
Sir James Bacon of Friston Hall and his wife Elizabeth were cousins from different branches of the Bacon family tree. They had two sons, Nathaniel Bacon who was born May 15, 1593 and died in August of 1644 and Reverend James Bacon, the Rector of Burgate, Suffolk who died on November 9, 1649. Rev. James Bacon married an unknown woman as his first wife and afterwards married Martha Woodward, the daughter of George Woodward and Elizabeth Honniwood. After the death of Rev. Bacon, Martha Bacon (Woodward) married Reverend Robert Peck of Hingham, Norfolk, England. It is very interesting to note that Rev. Robert Peck was on the “Diligent”
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According to the Torrence Chart, Reverend Bacon and Martha Woodward had four children:
i. 1. Honorable Nathaniel Bacon was baptized in 1620 and he died in 1692. He emigrated to Virginia about 1650, was the president of the Governor's Council and the Acting Governor, was married twice but did not leave any descendants.
ii. 2. Elizabeth Bacon was married on September 16, 1647 to Thomas Burrows (or Burroughs) of Bury St. Edmunds.
iii. 3. Martha Bacon married Anthony Smith of Colchester in about the year 1651. Their children were George Smith who died in 1666 at the age of 14, Elizabeth Smith who married a man named Sherry or Sheriffe and Abigail Smith (11 March 1656-12 November 1692) who married Hon. Lewis Burwell of "Carter's Creek" in Gloucester County, Virginia. Lewis Burwell was a member of the Council in 1702. They had four sons and six daughters and the daughters were:
a. Martha Burwell, born on November 16, 1685 in Fairfield, Gloucester, Virginia married Colonel Henry Armistead, the son of Colonel John Armistead and Judith his wife.
b. Joanna Burwell (1674-1727) who married in 1693 Colonel William Bassett, Jr. of Eltham, New Kent County, Virginia.
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Nathaniel "the Rebel" Bacon
Nathaniel Bacon (1593-1644) the other son of Sir James Bacon and Elizabeth Bacon had a son named Thomas Bacon of Friston Hall, Suffolk. His son was the well-known Nathaniel Bacon of Virginia who is famous for the Rebellion that bears his name.
Nathaniel Bacon the rebel was born on January 2, 1647 in Suffolk, England and he died in Virginia in October 1676. He graduated from the University of Cambridge, toured the continent, and then studied law at Gray's Inn until shortly before his departure for Virginia in 1674. He married Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward the Duke of Suffolk, although the marriage was violently opposed by her father and this was partly the reason why he decided to migrate to North America.
Bacon acquired two estates along the James River in Virginia, both financed by his father. His main plantation was situated 40 miles above Jamestown, and he also owned an outer plantation at the present site of Richmond. By virtue of his social position and financial means, plus the fact that he was related by marriage to Governor William Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon was appointed to the governor's council in less than one year after his arrival in the colony. The cordial relationship between Bacon and Berkeley was short lived and their initial dispute arose over the Indian policy espoused by Berkeley.
Bacon wanted to remove all of the Indians in the interests of unlimited territorial expansion and in retaliation for earlier Native American attacks on the frontier settlements while Berkeley, influenced by fear of starting an all-out Indian war advocated a policy of caution. In 1676 in defiance of Berkeley, Bacon organized an expedition against the Indians and although he was at first forced by public pressure to give Bacon a commission, he soon reneged and labeled Bacon's activities as rebellious and launched several military expeditions against him and the sixty or so colonists who had followed him in the raids on the Native Americans. Bacon managed to seize control of the government for a while and called a reform assembly to repeal low tobacco prices and high taxes.
At the height of his power in 1676 Bacon died of fever and the rebellion collapsed. (Nathaniel Bacon)
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In Virginia, both Richard Cocke and John Price were related by marriage to the Hallom Family and the Llewellyn family of the "Neck of Land". William Hallom listed John “of Burnham Essex” Goulding in his will and called him a friend and his overseer. John Goulding was sent to Virginia to look after the Hallom properties and he was “brought over” by Thomas Goodrich. John Price, who married into the Hallom family had lands bordering Nathaniel Bacon's plantation.
The following is from THE CURD FAMILY IN AMERICA, John Price immigrant ancestor of Henrico County, Virginia.
"In 1619 John Price received large grants of land in the Curl's Neck section of Henrico County, Virginia where we later find the noted plantations, "Curles", the home of Nathaniel Bacon, the determined rebel of 1679, "Bremo", home of the immigrant Richard Cocke and "Turkey Island" home of the immigrant William Randolph. After the Indian massacre of 1622 John Price became a man of importance in the Virginia settlement, but his early death in 1628 is responsible for the few definite records we have of his activities. Turning to the land grant books of Henrico County we find many items of value to those interested in his history although his grants were made at too early a date to be recorded in Virginia.
March 6, 1636 Richard Cocke received a grant for 3,000 acres of land in the upper part of Curl's Neck, part of which became the noted "Bremo" Plantation, on the east it adjoined the land of John Price and of "Turkey Island", later the property of Anne Hallom, widow first of John Price and second of Robert Hallom, still later to become the home of William Randolph, and on the west “Curles”, the home of Nathaniel Bacon.”
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There is more about that connection in "The Hallom Family of Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, England" on this website.
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References
Nathaniel Bacon. (n.d.). Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nathaniel-Bacon
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Winston of Virginia and Allied Families by Clayton Torrence, 1927, published by Richmond, Whittet & Shepperson, available on archive.org, https://archive.org/details/winstonofvirgini00torr