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Bush Family of VirginiaA brief history of the settlement of Virginia might be helpful. The English had failed in their attempts in the 1580s to found a colony at Roanoke on the Virginia coast. In 1606, however, the London Company, established to exploit North American resources, sent settlers to what in 1607 became Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in the New World. The colonists suffered extreme hardships, and by 1622, only 2000 of the more than 10,000 who had immigrated remained alive. In 1624 control of the failing company passed on to the crown, making Virginia a royal colony. Soon the tobacco trade was flourishing, the death rate had fallen, and with a legislature (the House of Burgesses, established in 1619) and an abundance of land, the colony entered a period of prosperity. Primarily white indentured servants worked individual farms that were available at low cost. The Chesapeake Bay area became a land of opportunity for poor English people. Our Bush ancestors in America have been traced back to Richard BUSH (born 1655), of Virginia, where, on 20 April, 1689 (is this date right?), he received a land grant of 793 acres on the south side of the Rappahannock River, on Piscataway Creek, which we learned from a book by Nell Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of VA Land Patents and Grants, 1623-1666, page 698. Piscataway Creek was named after the Piscataway Indians, one of the three groups of the Algonquian Indian Tribes, who had left the area by 1697. Richard Bush married and died in Essex County, Virginia. In addition 550 acres was granted to John BIBBY (the father of Mary BIBBY) on 13 Feb, 1661, and included transportation of 5 persons Edward Fisher, Anne Barnes, Timo. Kogan, John Mechanly, John Mosely. “Transportation of persons” probably referred to indentured servants who were laborers that were bound to work for a number of years to pay for their passage to America before receiving full freedom. Richard BUSH I was born in Essex County, Virginia around 1725 and married Mary Prescott on April 6, 1757, we believe in North Carolina where he had moved shortly after his fathers death in 1748. He then moved to Edgefield County, South Carolina about 1770.
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