Richard Buck

Reverend Richard Buck was a minister to the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown, Virginia from 1610 to 1624. He was chaplain of the first session of the Virginia General Assembly, which was composed of the House of Burgesses and the Virginia Governor's Council. This assembly met in the church at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, as the first elected assembly and law making body in colonial America.

Early life Richard Buck was born in 1582 in Wymondham, Leicestershire, England. Buck was a graduate of Oxford University.

Recruitment and journey Buck was recruited to serve as minister to the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown after the colony's first minister, Reverend Robert Hunt, died in 1608. Dr. Thomas Ravis, the Bishop of London, had recommended Buck for the appointment. The Sea Venture was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Bermuda and the passengers and crew did not arrive at Jamestown until May 23, 1610, nine months after the other ships of the Third Supply. The child, named Bermuda, died afterwards. Sarah died before Rolfe arrived in Virginia. Buck led the colonists in a "zealous and sorrowful prayer", which commemorated those who were deceased. Reverend Buck immediately gained the respect and affection of the colonists as his prayer reminded them of their esteemed first preacher, Robert Hunt. He was just in time to persuade the original settlers, who were nearly out of food and supplies and had boarded their ships to leave, not to return to England. Then he went to the chapel to hear a sermon from Reverend Buck. Others say that Alexander Whitaker, a vicar who settled at Henricus, presided at the wedding of Rolfe and Pocahontas.

The Virginia Company set aside 100 acres of land for glebe lands but the Buck family lived near the church in the Jamestown fort. In 1620, William Fairfax sold 12 acres in Jamestown, including a home and an outbuilding, to Buck. He prayed "that it would please God to guide and sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne glory and the good of this Plantation."

Death and family He married Elizabeth Browne on 7 July 1607 in Norfolk, England. Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir George Browne and a granddaughter of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu and Magdalen Dacre.

Buck died at Jamestown in 1624. According to historians Frank E. Gizzard and Dennis Boyd Smith, Buck's wife died within a few months of her husband.

He and Elizabeth had six children who survived to adulthood. They were Mara, Benoni, Gercian, Peleg, Elizabeth, who became the wife of Sergeant Thomas Crump (or Crampe), later a member of the House of Burgesses, and Bridget, who married John Burras, a brother of Anne Burras.