Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: JAMES SPEED. James Speed, son of Dr.‘ John Speed, of Southampton, England, was born in England, September 28, 1679. He came to America about 1695, when he was sixteen years of age. At that time the colony of Virginia numbered, all told, about 60,000 persons. The principal occupation of the people was raising tobacco, which was shipped to Europe- The part of Virginia then occupied was that which lay eastwardly of the present site of Richmond. It was after the date of James Speed’s arrival that Williamsburg, the first capital, was founded. As his grandson, James, was a pioneer in Kentucky in its early days, so this James lived in the early times of old Virginia. He found his way, not long after his landing, to the county of Surrey, which lay on the south side of the James river, opposite the site of Williamsburg. He, in common with the other colonists of Virginia, engaged in tobacco raising, and in about fifteen years he felt independent enough to get married. He was then thirty-two years of age. His choice was a young lady named Mary Pulley. They were married September 6, 1711. She was eighteen years of age at the time of her marriage. The ceremony was performed by Rev. John Cargill, the Episcopal, or Church of England, minister of Southwark Parish in Surrey county, Virginia. They lived in that county and both died there. He died March 15, 1719, aged thirty-nine. She died June 3, 1733, aged forty. They had four sons: 1. James, born June 16, 1712. 2. John, born February 5, 1714. 3. William T., born February 19, 1716. 4. Thomas, born February 28, 1719. From these dates it appears that when he died his oldest child was seven years of age, the second, five, the third, three, and the youngest only two weeks old. We only know of two of the children growing to manh…