Nicholas Martiau

1591 - 1657  (66 years)

• Name	Nicholas Martiau  [1, 2, 3, 4]
  Birth	2 Apr 1591	Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, Pays de la Loire, France   [3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Arrival	1620	, , Virginia, USA   [1, 5]
  Residence	1624	, Elizabeth City, Virginia, USA   [2]
  Death	16 Apr 1657	Yorktown, York, Virginia, USA   [3, 4]
  Burial	Yorktown, York, Virginia, USA   [3, 4]
  Person ID	I23345	Master
  Last Modified	16 Apr 2015

  
  

  Father	Nicholas Martiau,   b. 1547, , , , France d. 1600, York, Yorkshire, England (Age 53 years)
  Relationship	Stepchild
  Mother	Éléonore de Sormiers,   b. 1560, , , , France d. 1610, York, Yorkshire, England (Age 50 years)
  Relationship	Stepchild
  Family ID	F6144	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Jane De Berkeley,   b. 1593, , , , France d. 12 Dec 1686, Hampton, Independent Cities, Virginia, USA (Age 93 years)
  Married	1627	, Elizabeth City, Virginia, USA
  Children	+ 1. Elizabeth Martiau,   b. 12 Dec 1615, , Yorkshire, England d. 10 Feb 1686, Yorktown, York, Virginia, USA (Age 70 years)   2. Nicholas Martiau,   b. 1624, , Elizabeth City, Virginia, USA + 3. Sarah Martiau,   b. Nov 1629, , Elizabeth City, Virginia, USA d. 14 Mar 1695, Saint Andrews, Berkeley, South Carolina, USA (Age 65 years)   4. Richard Martiau,   b. 1630, Norfolk, Independent Cities, Virginia, USA
  Family ID	F6128	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	16 Apr 2015

  
  

  Family 2	Isabella Beech
  Marriage	1645
  Family ID	F6143	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	13 Apr 2015

  
  

• Event Map		Birth - 2 Apr 1591 - Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, Pays de la Loire, France Arrival - 1620 - , , Virginia, USA Residence - 1624 - , Elizabeth City, Virginia, USA Married - 1627 - , Elizabeth City, Virginia, USA Death - 16 Apr 1657 - Yorktown, York, Virginia, USA Burial - - Yorktown, York, Virginia, USA  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Photos

  Nicholas Martiau

  
  

• Notes

  Martiau was a French Huguenot refugee, educated as a military engineer. He was in the service of the Earl of Huntingdon, one of the Virginia Company, and was sent to America in 1620 aboard the ship "Francis Bonaventure." He led a raid against the Indians at Falling Creek after the 1622 massacre. He was instrumental in securing the removal of Governor Harvey. Harvey returned to England to plead his case. He later returned briefly to Virginia, bringing with him the young George Reade, who later became Acting Governor of the colony and married Martiau's daughter, Elizabeth. In 1627 Martiau defended the French king in an argument with Thomas Mayhew and this forced him to take a loyalty oath (he had previously been made an English citizen). His grandaughter, Mildred Reade, married Augustin Warner and George Washington was their descendant. His youngest daughter, Sarah, married Capt. William Fuller, who became the Puritan Governor of Maryland. . There is some controversy about the date of birth of Martiau's daughter, Elizabeth, which also casts some doubt about the identity of her mother. While there is much evidence that Elizabeth was born in Virginia, the daughter of Martiau and Jane Berkeley, who he married in about ***. However, on his arrival in Virginia in 1620, he claimed his daughter Elizabeth as a headright, meaning she would have been born before 1620. It is likely that his first wife was named Elizabeth, and she died before 1620. He married Jane, who was the widow of Lt. Edward Berkeley in 1624 or 1625. On December 12, 1625 Martiau wrote his sponsor, the Earl of Huntingdon, saying "I am now both a husband and a father." Martiau had three daughters, and this was likely the middle one, Mary. His third daughter was Sarah. In 1645 he married Isabella Beech. . Nicholas Martiau (1597-1657) A French Huguenot, he lived some period of time in England before being naturalized as an Englishman and sailing for Virginia. He had been born in France according to his own statement in the records of the General Court of Virginia and is believed to have been a protestant as the records of the French Huguenot congregation in London show him to have been a godfather at a baptism there in May 1615. Martiau arrived in Virginia in 1620. The records of the Virginia Company show that by February 1620 the colony had requested that engineers be sent out who were capable of raising fortifications. The Earl of Huntington, who had an interest in lands in the colony, engaged at his own expense two engineers, one a captain from the low countries named Benjamin Blewitt and the other a reputedly skilled French captain who had been long in England, Nicholas Martiau. Huntington specifically engaged them to act as his attorneys in establishing his lands in Virginia. To that end he saw that Martiau was naturalized, a necessary qualification to own land, vote, or hold office in the colony, and he also provided him with a life interest in some lands of the Huntington estate. Martiau arrived on the Francis Bona Ventura in August 1620. After the Indian massacre in March 1622 he commanded a company which sought out and fought the Indians. For a while after that he was at Falling Creek where the colony's iron works had been destroyed and the population devastated in the massacre. From there in 1623 he testified to the exemplary services of Doctor Ed Giften. In 1623 he was a member of the House of Burgesses that signed the completed draft of the First Laws made by the Assembly in Virginia. By the time of the census of 1624, Blewitt was no longer in the Virginia records and Capt Nicholas Martiau of Elizabeth City was the Earl's sole attorney in Virginia. In 1625 he appears in the muster as Captain Martiau, age 33. In March 1623, the Commissioners sent from London to investigate conditions in Virginia questioned where the colony should be fortified, and received from the Assembly the answer that the best defense against Indians would be a 6 mile palisade from Martin's Hundred to Chiskiacke, the future site of Yorktown. In 1630 Governor Harvey and the council voted lands for those who would settle in the first two years in Chiskiacke and upon completion of the palisade Martiau was among those who moved their families to Chiskiacke. In 1632 as a burgess from Chiskiacke and the Isle of Kent, he signed the petition to the crown for confirmation of the title to all of the colonists' lands. Martiau's plantation eventually included 1300 acres among which is the site of Yorktown today. As a prominent public figure Martiau appears frequently in the records thereafter. He was elected burgess from Chiskiacke and the Isle of Kent in 1632 and was a justice of York County from 1633 until his death, often holding meetings of the court in his home. In the prelude to the famous "Thrusting out of Sir John Harvey", a challenge to autocratic rule, Nicholas Martiau was one of three speakers who by their opposition forced the governor to return to London to report to the king. At two other times occasions arose requiring Martiau to prove his loyalty to the crown: in 1627 he was required by the General Court to take the "Oath of Supremacy", and in 1656 it was recorded in Northampton County that "Captain Nicholas Martiau obtained his denizenation in England and could hold any office or employment in Virginia." Little is known about Martiau's wife. In a letter dated December 1625 written in Elizabeth City and addressed to the Earl of Huntington Martiau announces himself as a husband and a father of "little ones". His wife, Jane, of unknown surname had apparently arrived on the Sea Flower in 1621, then been married to Lieutenant Bartley, and widowed by 1625. She in turn appears to have died before 1640. There is some supposition that there had been a first wife before Mrs. Bartley. There was a third marriage before November 1646 to a widow, Isabella Beech, who apparently died before Martiau died about 1657. Nicholas Martiau was survived by three daughters of his second marriage: Elizabeth married to Colonel George Read, Mary married to Colonel John Scasbrook, and Sarah married to Captain William Fuller, the Puritan Governor of Maryland under the Commonwealth. References: 1. "Nicholas Martiau: The Adventurous Huguenot, The Military Engineer and The Earliest American Ancestor of George Washington", by John Baer Stoudt, Norristown, PA, 1932 http://mediasvc.ancestry.com/image/5153c7b0-cdb3-4a08-8c7d-c81b9dcb3a33.jpg?Client=Trees&NamespaceID=1093 Nicholas Martiau, wives and children. Nicholas Martiau was a French Huguenot and came to Virginia in the "Francis Bonaventure" as a personal representative of the 5th Earl of Huntington, a member of the Virginia Company, a Capt. A Huguenot was a Calvinist Protestant against the Catholic Church. Military Engineer. His plantation comprised of 1,300 acres and included the site of the Battle of Yorktown. His wife, Jane Berkley, was a widow of Lieutenant Edward Berkley. He was the first to patent the site of Yorktown, and to represent Kent Island, York and Chiskiack in the House of Burgresses (1632). He was a settler of Elizabeth City, Charles City and York Counties, VA. He was a Justice of York County and also a Burgess there. In Volume IV of "Genealogies of Virginia Families" we read " Nicholas Martian's name is rendered variously in the records, Marlier, Martue, Martin, Martain. In 1621 a large party of French Walloons applied to the London Company for leave to settle in Virginia. Permission was granted, but as they received more favorable terms from the Dutch, they sailed to New York in 1622 and constituted the first Dutch colony in America. Some few, nevertheless came to Virginia, and amoung them was Nicolas Martain, who received his denization in England. In the list of Walloons presented in 1621 to the London Company, there is entered "Nicholas de la Marlier, his wife and two children;" and in the census of 1625 "Capt. Nicholas Martue" is named as living in Elizabeth City. (Hotten, List of Emigrants to America, 99,176,249.) When Chiskiack, on York River, was opened in 1630 for settlement he obtained the land at Yorktown and was the first representative in the Assembly for Chiskiack and Kent Island. He was one of the first justices of York County, and in 1639 obtained a patent for land at Yorktown due him on account of importing himself, Nicholas Marlier, wife, Jane, Nicholas, his son, Elizabeth Marlier, his daughter, and Jane Berkeley her daughter and several others "the first year to Chiskiack." In 1625 Lt. Edward Berkeley had living with him his wife Jane Berkeley, and daughter Jane. It seems that Martian married his widow. In 1635 he took a leading part in protesting against the tyranny of Governor Sir John Harvey, and the loss of Kent Island to Lord Baltimore, and was arrested and confined. But Sir John Harvey was deposed by the council and Martian and his friend were released. In the records of York he is mentioned in 1645 as married to Puritan governor of Maryland. These daughters were probably by the second wife Jane, the widow of Edward Berkeley, and Col. Scasbrook had a daughter named Jane. Martain's French wife and children probably did not survie the "seasoning period." He was the commom ancestor of George Washington, Robert E. Lee and many eminent Virginians.

  
  

• Sources

  [S747] Ancestry.com, U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc), Place: Virginia; Year: 1620; Page Number: 47. [S36] Jackson, Ron V., Accelerated Indexing Systems, comp., Virginia, U.S., Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1607-1890, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999.). [S751] Ancestry.com, U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.). [S711] Ancestry.com, Web: Virginia, Find A Grave Index, 1607-2012, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.). [S747] Ancestry.com, U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc), Place: Virginia; Year: 1620; Page Number: 127.