Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677) Commissioned Samuel Stephens governor of Albemarle, North Carolina on October 6/8, 1667.
Instructions to Samuel Stephens, January 1669/70
Lords Proprietor to Samuel Stephens, January 1669/70
Ca. 7 March 1670 Death of Samuel Stephens
Ca. April 1670 Berkeley married Samuel's widow, Frances Culpeper Stephens. An appendix includes two letters from Virginia Ferrar to the mysterious first Dame Berkeley. A second appendix contains renditions of the known letters and papers of Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley, the governor’s second wife. Their inclusion affords a measure of recognition for that remarkable woman who held so prominent a place in Sir William’s life. "Always a haughty man, Berkeley became more peevish as he aged and the burdens of government bore heavier upon him. Poor health dulled his faculties, making him rely upon a diminishing circle of intimates, especially his second wife, Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley, whom he wed in 1670. His method of governance failed to assure the goal of political harmony; neither were his favorites a cohesive group, nor was he quick to punish their misrule. Virginians who stood outside the reach of his bounty, or who felt the fury of his wrath, or who dared cross him increasingly questioned his leadership, though none dared question him until disagreements over Indian policy drove Nathaniel Bacon into rebellion."
Commission of administration on the estate of Samuel Stephens, 15 July 1670
Berkeley: Order-in-council regarding Samuel Stephens, 21 October 1670
Sara Drummond versus Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley, 8 June 1678 (http://www.uno.edu/~history/berkeley.htm)

Samuel Stephens 20 Sept 1636
Warwick River County
500 acres. Towards the head of Blunt Point River, adjoining to land
of John Bainham.
Patents No. 1, p. 387

Samuel Stephens 20 Sept 1636
Elizabeth City County
2000 acres. Being a neck of land stretching eastward upon the bay
of Chisopeian.
Patents 1, 1623-43, p. 387

Samuel Stephens (son and heir to Captain Richard Stephens, late of Virginia)
20 July 1639 Upper Norfolk County
2000 acres. In Nansamund river on both sides of the head of a creek called
Dumpling Island Creek.
Patents 1, p. 667

Samuel Stevens 12 Jan 1746
Goochland County
400 acres. On both sides of Mill Creek of Slate River.
Patents 25, 1745-47, p. 484

Samuel Stephens 20 Aug 1748
Albemarle County
225 acres. On the south side of James River lying on both sides of Middle
Slate River
Patents No. 26, 1747-48, p. 685

(http://www.gulfcoastplus.com/stephensj/lopag.html)

Roanoke Island was owned by Samuel Stephens who, on October 9, 1662, had been appointed "commander of the southern plantation" by the council in Virginia, and was later (1667-69 or 70) Governor of Albemarle County.

In 1689 Albemarle County as a unit of government ceased to exist, although the name continued intermittently in use for at least a further 10 years. Government of Carolina "North and East of Cape feare" was established, with Philip Ludwell as Governor (1689-94).[Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley Ludwell died in 1690.] In 1691 the Lords Proprietors appointed him governor of all Carolina, headquartered at Charles Town, with a deputy governor for the northern part of the colony - the beginning of the division of the province into North and South Carolina, though not so called at this time. Thomas Jarvis was the first deputy governor.

(http://www.wimfamhistory.net/Virginia/virgin03.htm)

The population of this outpost of Virginia had grown so large that it must have been a cause of some concern to Governor Berkeley. A “Commission issued to Captain Samuel Stephens to be commander of the southern plantation, authorizing him to appoint a sheriff,” was issued on October 9, 1662. This document was among those burned in Richmond in April, 1865, but a Virginia historian saw it and recorded this much about it several years earlier. Under Stephens’s commission the lands of the inhabitants in the “southern plantation” were secured to them.³⁸ The settlement’s first official was a native of Virginia, having been born there in about 1629. His father was Richard Stephens of London who had settled in Jamestown in 1623, and his mother was Elizabeth Peirsey, daughter of the cape-merchant, Abraham Peirsey. Captain Stephens married Frances Culpeper in 1652, and they lived at Bolthrope plantation on Warwick River. The absence of any information to the contrary leads to the assumption that Stephens continued to head the colony until he was succeeded in 1664 by William Drummond, governor of Albemarle County under the eight Lords Proprietors to whom Carolina was granted by King Charles II in 1663.

³⁸ McIlwaine, Minutes of the Council and General Court, 507.

(http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hp/colonial/Nchr/Subjects/powell5.htm)

Colonial Virginia Register:
A list of Governors, Councillors and Other Higher Officials, and also of Members of the House of Burgesses, and the Revolutionary Conventions of the Colony of Virginia --- Compiled by William Glover and Mary Newton Standard, published by Joel Munsell's Sons, Publishers, Albany, New York, 1902.

RICHARD STEPHENS of James City County, Va.; Born in England. Died, about 1636.; member in 1630.

George Stephens, assembled Feb 17, 1644-1645; Nov 20, 1645; Apr 26, 1652;

(http://www.ls.net/~newriver/va/vareg1.htm)

Bolthorpe Plantation is located on the Warwick River, Newport News, Virginia. The 1350 acre estate, originally owned by Captain Samuel Stephens, was sold to Colonel William Cole in 1671.

(http://www.warmuseum.org/docents/mike/bolthorpe.html)

Author: Osgood, Herbert L.
Title: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century.
Citation: New York: Columbia University Press, 1904.
Subdivision: Volume II. Part III. Chapter X Page 232.
Vol. II, Pt. III, Ch. IX Table of Contents Vol. II, Pt. III, Ch. XI

CAROLINA AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE. THE ALBEMARLE SETTLEMENT, NORTH CAROLINA

Samuel Stephens governor of Albemarle.¹ He was given authority to select a council, and, if the proprietors failed to act, a secretary and surveyor-general, all to serve during the pleasure of the board. The instructions issued to Stephens were the Concessions of 1665, though in 1668 these were partially superseded by the provisions of the Great Deed of Grant relating to land. ....
In 1677 we get the first view of the political and social conditions which existed in the Albemarle settlements. For this we are indebted to the representations¹ made to the proprietors and to the home government by the various parties who were concerned in the so-called Culpepper rebellion. At the time the number of tithables, or working hands between the ages of sixteen and sixty, was about 1400,² of whom one-third were Indians, negroes, and women. Estimated upon this basis, it is supposed that the total population was between 2500 and 3000. About 800,000 pounds of tobacco were annually raised on the plantations of the colony, besides an abundance of cattle and Indian corn. Those were the chief products of a population which was almost wholly agricultural. The tobacco was a valuable article of export, in return for which European goods and materials were obtained. As the nature of the coast prevented large craft from entering, small vessels from New England and Virginia took the tobacco to these colonies, whence it was shipped, in large part at least, direct to the continent, and goods were brought back on the return voyages. New Englanders and many residents of Albemarle, notably Valentine Bird, the collector, and George Durant, the first settler, were interested in this illegal trade. Governor Peter Carteret, who was a relative of the proprietor and had been chosen by the grand council to succeed Stephens, on his return to England was charged by the proprietors with encouraging the New England trade and discouraging settlement south of Albemarle sound. John Jenkins, when Carteret left, as deputy governor continued the same policy,³ and was said to be under the control of Durant.

(http://www.dinsdoc.com/osgood-8-2-3-10.htm)

322

LAWS OF VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1674 −−− 26th CHARLES II.

the first day of January, one thousand six hundred and fifty and two, Samuell Stephens deceased on the first part, Warham Horsmenden on the second part, and George Hunt, deceased on the third part, in performance of an agreement made before the marriage of the said Sammuell Stephens, deceased, with Frances his late wife; the said Samuell Stephens did, amongst other things in the said indenture give and graunt unto the said Warham Horsmenden and George Hunt all that his said Samuells plantation lying and being in Warwick county, containing by estimation one thousand three hundred and and fifty acres together with all appertenances thereunto belonging, to have and to hold unto the said Warham Horsmenden and George Hunt upon condition onely, and in trust that the said Warham Horsmenden and George Hunt should within one yeare after the date of the said indenture make a graunt of the said plantation and premisses to and for the use of the said Samuel Stephens for and dureing the term of his naturall life, and if the said Samuell should happen to dye, and the said Frances his wife, him to overlive, that then the said plantation and premisses should be to her for life, and her heires by the said Samuell Stephens lawfully begotten, and for default of such issue to her and her heires forever, in pursuance of which said indenture by indenture tripartite bearing date the fourth day of November, one thousand six hundred fifty and three, made between the said Warham Horsmenden on the first part, George Hunt on the second, aud the said Samuell Stephens on the third part reciteing the before mentioned indenture in performance thereof the said Warham Horsmenden and George Hunt did give and graunt the said plantation and premisses unto the said Samuell Stephens, and Frances his wife, to the use of the said Samuell for and dureing the terme of his naturall life and after, to the use of the said Frances his wife, and the heires of her body by the said Samuell lawfully be gotten, and for default of such issue to the said ffrances and her heires for ever, as in and by both the said indentures remaining upon record on the records of the county court of Warwick, relation thereunto being had more fully and at large it doth and may appeare and the said Samuell Stephens being dead and

323

LAWS OF VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1674 −−− 26th CHARLES II.
(Estate, in fee, in Frances, relict of Samuel Stephens, by virtue of the settlement, & her surviving him without issue.)

the said ffrances haveing survived him, and there being noe issue between them the said ffrances by vertue of the said indentures became seized of the said plantation and premisses of a good estate in ffee simple to her and her heires for ever, and the said Frances after intermarrying with the right honourable Sir William Berkeley Knt. Governour and Capt. Genl. of Virginia, and after the said intermarriage by indenture bearing date the six and twentyeth day of Aprill, one thousand six hundred seaventy and one, made between the said Sir William Berkeley and Dame Frances his wife on the one part.......

(http://www.vagenweb.org/hening/vol02-15.htm)

II. Ye County of Albemarle. George Durant held earliest known land grant (1661), in what became Perquimans co., and by 1663 there were 2000 persons scattered along the Chowan River (10). The environment (10-12) with a map from about 1672 (11). Tobacco and the Navigation Acts of 1660, 1661 and 1663 (12-13). Religious diversity (13-14) and the clique of early settlers: George Durant, Jenkins, Pricklove, Calleway, Harvey, Jarvis, Foster, Willoughby, Blount, and Bird (14). Sir William Berkeley, Virginia Governor, selects William Drummond in October 1664 as first governor of Albemarle (15), succeeded by Samuel Stephens in 1667 (15-16). Inequity of taxation with Virginia, and the 1668 Great Deed of Grant (16). Stephens dies before March 1670 and his widow, Frances Culpeper, becomes second wife of Berkeley by July; Peter Carteret succeeds Stephens (17). Crop failures and other disasters (17-18), with growing discontent (18) that sends Carteret to England (19-21) with a list of "instructions" (20); Carteret appoints John Jenkins to govern in his absence (21). Carteret dies without returning to Albemarle (22). Summary of ‘Upheaval in Albemarle’ from reprint of “Upheaval I nAlbemarle” (Keyed to pages of original publication)

(http://www.bjhughes.org/durantdoc.html)

Sources:

PAF - Archer files = Captain James Brown + Martha Stephens (1806-1840) < Alexander Stephens (1773-1824) + Mary Polly Daley < Richard Stephens (1750-1829?) + Martha Ann Robbins or Robards < .......Samuel Stephens (1640-1670) < Richard Stephens (.

Culpepper Rebellion - http://gen.culpepper.com/historical/rebellion/2-background2.htm : Fairfax Harrison published in April 1925 the pedigree chart of the Wigsell Culpepers with an accompanying narrative which provides some evidence that John Culpeper may have been the brother of Frances Culpeper. Frances married three men who were or became colonial governors - Samuel Stephens of Albemarle County, Sir William Berkeley of Virginia, and Philip Ludwell of North Carolina. Frances's marriage would have created a close tie between either her uncle or her brother, John Culpeper, and Sir William Berkeley, who was at that time governor of Virginia and one of the eight original Lords Proprietors of Carolina.

http://www.gulfcoastplus.com/stephensj/1812.html

http://www.gulfcoastplus.com/stephensj/confed.html

http://www.lib.co.rowan.nc.us/HistoryRoom/html/stephens_family_materials.htm

Chronology and Documentary Handbook of the State of North Carolina, 1554-1977 , Robert L. Vexler, State Editor, William F. Swindler, Series Editor. 1978 Oceana Publications, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, New York. ISBN: 0-379-16258-3

Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, by Robert Wayne Ramsey 1964. Page 152, etc. ISBN: 64-22530