William Carver

William Carver (before 1640 before September 7, 1676), was an English merchant, mariner, planter and politician who represented Lower Norfolk County in the House of Burgesses from 1665 through 1669, is best known for his participation in Bacon's Rebellion, which led to his execution in 1676.

Early and family life Probably born in Bristol, England. By the mid-1650s Carver owned a ship that engaged in trade between Bristol and London in England, and its colonies. Carver served on the Committee for Propositions, and when the Second Anglo-Dutch War ended in 1667, he was appointed to a committee to ask Governor Sir William Berkeley and his Council whether enough money remained to erect a fort to protect the Hampton Roads area. In November, Carver's property was ordered confiscated and sold, and Carver was among those specifically exempted from the governor's pardon declaration issued that winter. However, Carver's son was later able to recover some of the lands that his father had patented, and in 1681 sold them. Decades later, William Craford founded a town on part of that land, which became Portsmouth, Virginia.