From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Spotswood c.1676-1740
With permission from
The Picture Collection
The Library of Virginia

Alexander Spotswood (c. 1676 - 6 June 1740) Lieutenant-Colonel and Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

Alexander Spotswood was born in the Tangier Garrison, Morocco, Africa about 1676 to Catharine Maxwell (c. 1638 - December 1709) and her second husband, Dr Robert Spottiswoode (September 17, 1637 - 1680), the Chirurgeon to the Garrison (still a descendant of King Robert II of Scotland through the 2nd Earls of Crawford) [1]). His older half-brother (by his mother's first marriage to George Elliott) was Roger Elliott (c. 1655 - May 15, 1714), who became the First Governor of Gibraltar. Following the death of Robert Spotswood, his mother married thirdly Rev Dr George Mercer, the Garrison's Schoolmaster.

On May 20, 1693, Alexander became an Ensign in the Earl of Bath's Regiment of Foot, and was commissioned in 1698, being promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1703. He was appointed Quartermaster-General of the Duke of Marlborough's army the same year, and was wounded at the Battle of Blenheim the following year.

In 1710, Alexander was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, under the nominal governorship of George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney. He was the first to occupy the new Governors Mansion, which many citizens thought overly extravagant (its 20th-century reconstruction is now one of the principal landmarks in Colonial Williamsburg). A Tobacco Act requiring the inspection of all tobacco intended for export or for use as legal tender was passed in 1713. The next year, he founded the First Germanna Colony, and regulated trade with native Americans. In 1715, he bought 3229 acres (13 km²) at Germanna.

In 1716, he created the First Iron Foundry in the colony, and led the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition up the Rappahannock River valley and across the Blue Ridge Mountains at Swift Run Gap into the Shenandoah Valley to expedite settlement. The following year saw the foundation of the Second Germanna Colony and the Repeal of regulation of trade with native Americans. A Third Germanna Colony followed in 1719, and Germanna was made the seat of Spotsylvania County the following year.

It was in the fall of 1718 when Spotswood engaged in a clandestine expedition by privately hiring two sloops, Jane and Ranger, and a number of Royal Navy men to seek out the pirate Blackbeard, or Edward Teach. On November 18, 1718 Lt. Robert Maynard sailed from Hampton, Virginia to Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina. On November 22, Maynard and his men defeated Blackbeard and the pirates. On the 24th, two days after Blackbeard's death, Spotswood issued a proclamation at the Assembly in Williamsburg offering reward for any who brought Teach and the other pirates to justice.

A Treaty with the Iroquois was arranged in Albany, New York during 1721. Alexander completed the Governor's palace in 1722, when he was recalled from the lieutenant governorship and replaced by Hugh Drysdale. Throughout his career, Spotswood had maintained an adversarial relationship with the Virginia Council, especially its most prominent member, James Blair. As the Bishop of London's representative in the colony, the President of the College of William and Mary, and a councilman in Virginia's highest legislative body, Blair was arguably the most powerful man in the colony. He successfully orchestrated the recall of three royally appointed governors, including Alexander Spotswood, who entered private life with 80,000 acres (324 km²) in Spotsylvania and three iron furnaces.

Returning to London, he married Elizabeth Butler Brayne in 1724, but was back at the 'Enchanted Castle', Germanna, by 1729. He served as Deputy Postmaster General from 1730 to 1739, and died on June 6, 1740 at Annapolis, Ann Arundel, Maryland (MD).

Alexander married Elizabeth Butler Brayne in London and had four children by her:

• John M. Spotswood (1725 - 1758) married in 1745 Mary West Dandridge {a cousin of Martha Washington}, daughter of William Dandridge, Esq., of Elson Green, King William Co., Va, a Captain in the British Navy. Their son Brig. Gen. Alexander Spotswood of the 2nd Virginia Regiment married to Elizabeth Washington - a daughter of Col. William Augustine Washington - a 2nd cousin of George Washington.
• Anne Catherine Spotswood (1728 - CIR 1802) married Col. Bernard Moore, Esq., of Chelsea, King William Co., Va, a gentleman seventh in descent from Sir Thomas More, of Chelsea, England, the author of Utopia, and became an {Ancestor of Robert E. Lee}
• Dorothea Spotswood (CIR 1729 - 25 Sep 1773) married in 1747 Mary Dandridge's brother, Col. Nathaniel West Dandbridge, who was a cousin of Martha Washington and a son of William Dandridge, Esq., of Elson Green, King William Co., Va, a Captain in the British Navy.
• Robert Spotswood (CIR 1732 - 1758), who was a subaltern officer under Washington. In 1756, while with a scouting party, he was killed near Fort du Quesne.

• Will PRO - PROB 1/13;
• Official Letters (ed. by R. A. Brock, 2 vol., 1882-85);
• Biographies by W. Havighurst (1968) and L. Dodson (1932, repr. 1969).

Colonial Governors of Virginia

Wingfield • Ratcliffe • Scrivener • Smith • Percy • Gates • De La Warr • Percy • Dale • Gates • Dale • Yeardley • Argall • Yeardley • Wyatt • Yeardley • West • Pott • Harvey • West • Harvey • Wyatt • Berkeley • Bennett • Digges • Mathews • Berkeley • Colepeper • Howard of Effingham • Andros • Nicholson • Nott • Jenings • Hunter • Orkney (absentee) • Spotswood • "King" Carter • Gooch • Albemarle (absentee) • Gooch • Lee • Dinwiddie • Loudoun • Fauquier • Amherst (absentee) • Fauquier • Botetourt • Nelson • Dunmore