William Nelson (governor)

Nelson was born in 1711 to Margaret Reade and her merchant husband Thomas "Scotch Tom" Nelson. His maternal grandfather, the former burgess and sometimes acting Governor, Col. George Reade had owned significant property in York County, near the capital of the Colony of Virginia), although his son Robert Reade did not continue his political officeholding. His father had immigrated from Cumbria circa 1690, then settled in Yorktown where he became the town's leading merchant about 1705. Their next child was a daughter, Mary, who survived and ultimately married Edmund Burwell. A younger son, Thomas, would become the colony's secretary of state and later serve on the Virginia Governor's Council with this man. That man's sons (many with the same names of this man's children) also became active patriots, and both branches intermarried. Their mother Margaret had died by 1723, when her widower remarried, to Frances Housden Tucker.^[2] Both William and Thomas Nelson traveled to England as boys, where they received educations appropriate to their class. Meanwhile, their father built the (still-surviving) Nelson House about 1730.^[3]

As eldest son, William Nelson helped his father operate the family's store and merchant business in the port town on the York River. This involved what was known as the Triangular trade, trading Virginia tobacco for sale overseas, as well as importing goods and enslaved people from abroad, since Thomas Nelson was an agent of the Royal African Company. They had a ship named the 'Nelson' as well as a gristmill. William Nelson greatly expanded the business, as well as owned plantations operated using enslaved labor.^[4]

Nelson began his public life as one of the justices of the peace for York County (the justices jointly governing the county in that era). He became York County's sheriff in 1738.^[5] He began his colony-wide service in 1742, when York County voters elected him as one of their representatives in the House of Burgesses, the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly, but he only served in the part-time body for a partial term before his elevation to the upper house.^[6][7] Eight days after his father died in 1745, the governor nominated William Nelson (and with royal assent), Nelson (and later his brother Thomas) became a member of the assembly's upper house, the Governor's Council, which also functioned as the colony's highest court, and served until his death.^[8] Nelson was also appointed executor or co-executor of several estates, the most famous of which was of Governor Francis Fauquier.^[9]

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Nelson actively supported the Patriot cause, including opposing the Stamp Act and other royal revenue measures after the French and Indian War. By this time, he had seniority and became president of the Governor's Council. Thus, he functioned as the colony's acting governor between the death of Lord Botetourt on October 15, 1770 and the arrival of his successor, Lord Dunmore, in August 1771.