Samuel Jordan

Samuel Jordan (1578 – 1623), was an early Jamestown settler in the Virginia Colony and one of the first American colonial legislators, born in Wiltshire, England, son of Robert Jordan. The Jordans, or Jourdains, were of French descent, Huguenots associated with the protestant reformation.

Jordan traveled to the New World as part of the "Third Supply" of the Virginia Company, to the first English colony at Jamestown. He was a passenger on the "Sea Venture", the flagship of the fleet which became shipwrecked on Bermuda, (perhaps the first example of the mythical Bermuda Triangle phenomenon).

Sylvester Jourdain, possibly Samuel's cousin (although there is no evidence that Samuel Jordan and Sylvester Jourdain were related) kept a log of events as Governor Thomas Gates, Admiral George Somers, the other passengers and himself built two new ships (the "Patience" and the "Diligence") from parts of the wrecked "Sea Venture", and eight months late, finally arrived at Jamestown, only to discover the survivors of the Starving Time at the Colony. As they were about to abandon the colony, another supply mission commanded by Lord Delaware arrived, and together, these three groups became the most permanent and successful part of the early colony.

Jourdain's account of the seagoing adventure may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

Samuel Jordan was a widower when he arrived in Jamestown, having three sons by his first marriage. The sons later followed him to the Americas. He married a local widow, Cecily Reynolds Bailey. Cecily arrived in the American colonies on the Swan, August 1610 (or 1611). A source states that she was ten years and alone when she arrived, because her parents and younger sister arrived in Jamestown between August 1609 and May 1610. In 1620 Samuel Jordan, settled in a place which became his plantation, known as Jordan's Journey. He built a home called Beggar's Bush, and was elected to the first legislative assembly in America, the House of Burgesses in Jamestown. Beggar's Bush may have been named for the play by Beaumont & Fletcher, but more likely is from common Elizabethan English use of the term, meaning "poverty, often caused by the person's own folly."

In 1622, the local Indian tribes organized a surprise attack on the English colonists. During what became known as the Indian Massacre of 1622, many men, women, and children were killed in a coordinated series of attacks led by Chief Opechancanough of the Powhatan Confederacy. After the attack, Samuel gathered together a few of the survivors at Beggar's Bush. At the time of a survey in 1623, Beggar's Bush housed 42 people, including many neighboring families who had gone there for protection. In early 1623 Samuel was still established in his plantation. Samuel died at Jordan's Journey sometime before April, 1623, and an inventory of his estate included his widow, Cecily and her two young daughters, two plantations, five houses, two boats, ten servants, and several coats of chainmail. Rev. Grivell Pooley, who had conducted Samuel's funeral, proposed to the widow Cicely shortly afterwards. She apparently consented but subsequently refused to go through with the wedding and accepted a second proposal from Col. William Farrar (the attorney who administered her husband's estate). On 14 June 1623, Rev. Pooley instituted the first breach of promise suit in America. Pooley lost his case and had to sign a formal release to the Widow Cecily bonding himself in the sum of 500 pounds never to have any claim, right or title to her. The Governor and Council of the Colony were so stirred by the extraordinary incident that they issued a solemn proclamation against a woman engaging herself to more than one man at a time. There is no known record that this edict has ever been revoked.

Samuel's three adult sons from his first marriage, Thomas, Robert, and Samuel, are believed to have come to Virginia in the 1620s. Robert reportedly died on March 22, 1622, during the Indian massacre. He was killed at Berkley's Hundred, some five miles up the river from Jordan's Journey, when he went there to warn the inhabitants there of the planned Indian attack. Thomas settled in Isle of Wight County. The other son, Samuel, is believed to have come to Virginia as a young man, returned to England to study at Oxford, and then came back to the Virginia after completing his studies at All Souls College, Oxford. Samuel is believed to have first settled in Surry County. Later he moved on west to Lunenburg County, and his trail was lost.

Samuel Jordan is known to Virginians as an Ancient Planter, being from the first colony, and his name is pronounced by locals now as "Jer'-den".