William Claiborne

This article is about the 17th century English pioneer, surveyor, merchant and colonial politician. For the 19th century United States politician, see William C. C. Claiborne. For the college football player and reverend, see Wild Bill Claiborne.
William Claiborne
Secretary of State for the Virginia Colony
In office
1626–1634
Parliamentary Commissioner and Secretary of the Virginia Colony
In office
1648–1660
Succeeded byRichard Kemp
Member of the Virginia Governor's Council
In office
1623-1637
In office
1642–1661
Treasurer of the Virginia colony
In office
1642–1661
Treasurer of the Virginia colony
In office
1652–1661
Personal details
Bornc. 1600
Crayford, Kent, Kingdom of England
Diedc. 1677
West Point, Virginia Colony, Kingdom of England
SpouseElizabeth Butler
Children4 sons including William Claiborne Jr., 2 daughters
ResidenceRomancoke
Alma materPembroke College, Cambridge University
OccupationSurveyor, colonial government official, trader, planter

William Claiborne also, spelled Cleyburne (c. 1600 – c. 1677)[1] was an English pioneer, surveyor, and an early settler in the colonies/provinces of Virginia and Maryland and around the Chesapeake Bay. Claiborne became a wealthy merchant and planter, as well as a major political figure in the mid-Atlantic colonies, and the founder of one of the First Families of Virginia. He featured in disputes between the colonists of Virginia and the later settling of Maryland, partly because of his earlier trading post on Kent Island in the mid-way of the Chesapeake Bay, which provoked the first naval military battles in North American waters. Claiborne repeatedly attempted and failed to regain Kent Island from the Maryland Calverts, sometimes by force of arms, after its inclusion in the lands that were granted by a 1632 Royal Charter to the Calvert family. Kent Island had become Maryland territory after the surrounding lands were granted to Sir George Calvert, first Baron and Lord Baltimore (1579–1632) by the reigning King of England, Charles I (1600–1649; reigned from 1625 until his execution in 1649).[2]

Claiborne was an Anglican, a Puritan sympathizer, and deeply resentful of the Calverts' Catholicism. He was one of the signers, along with Virginia Governor John Pott, Samuel Matthews, and Roger Smyth, of a letter to the King's Privy Council, dated 30 November 1629, complaining that Lord Baltimore refused to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy to the Church of England.[3] He sided with Parliament during the English Civil War of 1642–1651 and was appointed to a commission charged with subduing and managing the Province of Virginia and Province of Maryland, both British colonies at the time. He played a role in the submission of Virginia to parliamentary rule in this period. Following the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, he retired from involvement in the politics of the Virginia colony. He died around 1677 at his plantation, Romancoke, on Virginia's Pamunkey River. According to historian Robert Brenner, "William Claiborne may have been the most consistently influential politician in Virginia throughout the whole of the pre-Restoration period".[4]

  1. ^ Sources disagree as tp Claiborne's date of birth and which family he descended from in England. Brenner, which is the most recent authoritative historical text, cites 1587 as the date of birth and the Norfolk/Kent Clayborns of England as his ancestors. Other dates and biographical information reflect "Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography" 1887–89.
  2. ^ Warren Billings, "Claiborne, William (1600–1679)" in Dictionary of Virginia Biography vol. 3, p. 255–256, also available at https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/claiborne-william-1600-1679/
  3. ^ Neill, Edward D. (1876). The founders of Maryland as portrayed in manuscripts, provincial records and early documents. Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1876. p. 45.
  4. ^ Brenner, p. 120