07/04/2026
In honor of 250 years of America, another story of one of my first ancestors to sail for these unknown shores.
Lady Elizabeth Butler Claiborne
1610 Essex Eng-1688 New Kent VA
Elizabeth has lineage to Henry II, King of England, Henry I, Charlemagne, and William the Conqueror. Her ancestral stories are long and plentiful, but,as always, almost all of them are from her father/brother/husband perspectives. Sadly there is almost no information about ELIZABETH herself.
Elizabeth Butler was born about 1610, in Essex, England it is said she sailed to America with her brother Thomas. They immigrated around 1631, she settled in Jamestown. That is where she married Captain WIlliam Claiborne, treasurer of the colony, sometime before 1635. The couple had 4 sons and 2-3 daughters together.
They were said to be a devout protestants, but believed intently in freedom to practice whatever religion you wished. William had “aspirations of financial and political success”. He arrived at Jamestown in October, 1621 on the ship 'the George'. He laid out the area in Jamestown known as New Towne.
Tensions in the area were very high as the local Native Powhaten peoples were getting real tired of the new arrivals invading their lands and stealing their resources. Just a few months after Williams arrival, they attacked Jamestown and other plantations, killing hundreds. The newcomers retaliated, killing hundreds of native tribesmen, their families, and burning their fields. The Claiborne family survived the fighting, but many others did not.
William did achieve the honors and influence he was after. In 1623 he was appointed to serve as the first Secretary of the Colony from 1625-35, and again 1652-60. During this time William accumulated large tracts of land, including
250 acres at Archers Hope (James City);
500 acres at Blount Point (Warwick),
150 acres at Elizabeth City;
5000 acres in Northumerland County;
5000 acres on the Pamunkey; and
1,500 acres on the north side of the York the River. They spent their later days on their plantation in Virginia-called Romancoke. By 1626 he had taken a total of 17,500 acres in 7 different locations.
1627 Claiborne was commissioned by Governor Yeardley of Virginia to lead an expedition “for discoverie of the bottome of the Bay”, to trade with and build better relations with the local native peoples, the Susqehannocks. It is said he had a very good relationship with many of the local native tribes, one that no other colonizers had been able to establish. Claiborne joined forces with the Susquehannocks and built a long-lasting and said to be, mutually beneficial relationship.
In August 1631, he landed upon the Isle of Kent and started the first English settlement in what is now Maryland. This was the fourth official settlement in America, predated only by Jamestown, Plymouth, and the Massachusetts Colony. Established on the southeastern side of the island, the settlement stood approximately 2 miles northeast of Kent Point on the shore of what is now known as Eastern Bay. Elizabeth and the children joined him there and were said to be very happy. They named their plantation there Crayford(believed to be named after his birth place). He would eventually lose this land on the Isle of Kent due to a political rivalry with George Calvert, Lord Baltimore. This fight over the Isle of Kent dominated the rest of Williams adult life. He spent decades, and most of his fortune, trying to fight the Baltimore family for the Isle of Kent, eventually giving up and retiring to Romancoke.
Upon his death in 1667, he is said to have patented at least 3000 acres in what became King William County Maryland.
The only real mention of Elizabeth was when she patented 700 acres in Elizabeth City County, the patent stated that “the land was handed over to her by her husband…in nature and in lieu of a jointure," 11 June 1644.
Having said all of this, I am aware that the coming of my ancestors meant the loss of other peoples ancestors and their ancestral lands. I do not intend to gloss over that fact. The truth of the ugliness of that time period in America is heartbreaking. I am only highlighting my ancestors because I am proud of the women who had no rights of their own, who were able to make these huge leaps of faith to leave everything they knew…the comforts, the loved ones, the safety…all with the hopes and dreams of what the unknown held. The strength and resilience they had is worth remembering. Their names are worth repeating. The founding mothers were just as important in the fabric of America. They built lives that led to me standing here right now, and for that I am proud and forever grateful.🙏🏻
