Edward Jaquelin

Edward Jaquelin or Jacquelin (1668 or 1669 – November 9, 1739) was a child immigrant who became a Virginia planter and politician who represented Jamestown in the House of Burgesses.

Early life

Jaquelin was born to the former Elizabeth Craddock of Kent County, England and her Huguenot husband John Jaquelin in 1668 The family emigrated to the Virginia Colony in 1685, when Edward was a teenager. Jamestown voters elected Jaquelin as their representative in the House of Burgesses in the 1712–1714 session. He succeeded Nathaniel Burwell and was in turn replaced by John Clayton.

Personal life

In 1699, Jaquelin married the wealthy and twice widowed Rachel James Sherwood, whom he survived, though the couple had no children. After her death, in 1706 he married Martha Cary Thruston, the widow of John Thruston of Martin's Hundred and daughter of Lt.Col. William Cary of Elizabeth City County (Malachi Thruston had represented various constituencies in Norfolk and Princess Anne Counties in the House of Burgesses). Their first child, Elizabeth, reached adulthood and married Yorktown merchant Richard Ambler in 1729. Two of their surviving sons (this man's grandsons), Edward and John held significant local offices as well as served terms in the legislature, and their youngest brother Jaquelin Ambler distinguished himself in the Revolutionary War and afterward served on the Council of State (and his daughter became the wife of John Marshall). However, Jaquelin outlived both Martha and their sons Edward Jaquelin II (1716-1734) and Mathew Jaquelin (1707-1727). His wife Martha (or their never-married daughter Martha Jaquelin (1711-1792)) donated a baptismal font to the James City Parish church in Jamestown in 1733 (which survived the church). Her sister Mary Jacquelin (1714-1764) married John Smith of "Shooter's Hill" in Middlesex County, Virginia.

Death and legacy

Jaquelin died in November 1739, having outlived both his wives and both his sons. His will was admitted to probate in James City County. Jaquelin bequeathed the Jamestown Island tract to his four year old grandson John Ambler, with life rights to the boy's father Richard Ambler, and a farm in Powhatan to his unmarried daughter Martha (who lived at her parents' Jamestown home but later moved to the Amblers' home in Yorktown, having sold that tract to her sister's husband as well as signed a quitclaim deed).