Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Thomas NELSON
Thomas Nelson, of Yorktown, York Co., Va., Governor of the State of Virginia and hence known as Governor Nelson, Major General in the army of the Revolution, was b. at Yorktown, Va., December 26, 1738. He was the eldest son and child of President William Nelson of the same place, and Elizabeth Burwell, his wife, and was grandson of Thomas Nelson, known as "Scotch Tom Nelson," and his wife, Margaret Reade. He died during an attack of asthma, caused by exposure during the Revolution, at Mount Airy, Hanover Co., January, 1789, aged fifty-one years. He was educated in England and on his return to Virginia, when barely twenty-one years old, he was elected to the House of Burgesses. He was a member of the first committee that met at Williamsburg, James City Co., in 1774, to consider the question of taxation of the Colonies of America by the home government of Great Britain.
A committee was appointed to inquire of the several colonies the various violations of their constitutional rights by the British ministry. This committee consisted of: Peyton Randolph, Robert Carter Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Nelson was a member of the Provincial Committee, and in July, 1774, he was appointed Colonel of the Second Virginia Regiment of Infantry. He was a member of the Convention which met at Williamsburg, James City Co., Va., in May, 1776, to frame a constitution for Virginia, and was selected to offer the resolutions instructing the delegates in Congress at Philadelphia to vote to pass the Declaration of Independence.
He signed the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776. In August, 1777, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia State Forces, and soon after raised a troop of cavalry with which he reported at Philadelphia. In June, 1781, he was elected Governor of Virginia, for occupying which place he was recommended by Thomas Jefferson, then retiring from office.
He participated in the siege of Yorktown in 1718, as Commander of the Virginia troops, with the rank of Major General in the American army. His statue is one of six placed about that of Washington at Richmond in front of the capitol.
Governor Thomas Nelson married (July 29, 1762) Lucy, daughter of Philip Grymes, of Middlesex Co., Va., and Mary Randolph, daughter of Sir John Randolph, of Williamsburg, James City Co., Va., and Susanna Beverley, his wife. Their ninth child, Robert Nelson, b. Yorktown, December 14, 1778, married (about 1803) Judith Carter, youngest daughter and ninth child of Governor John Page, of Virginia, by his first wife, Frances Burwell.
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