Ensign Thomas Washer was an early Virginia colonist who settled in the area that became Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Washer and Christopher Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation — thereafter known as Isle of Wight Plantation — as burgesses in the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the lower house of the colonial Virginia General Assembly, in 1619.
Life Thomas was born to Blanche Carmarden and the Reverend William Washer, the latter of Upminster, Essex.
Before 1619, Ensign Washer, Captain Nathaniel Basse, and Giles Jones received patents for land along the Pagan River. Captain Christopher Lawne also settled in the same vicinity. Although the area was known as Captain Lawne's Plantation and its representatives were listed as representatives from the plantation, the colonists had also named the area "Warrosquyoake Shire" after the Native American tribe who lived there. Washer and Christopher Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation in the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619.
The Indian Massacre of 1622 decimated the colony, including Warrosquyoake Shire, and began a series of retaliatory skirmishes that led to great loss of life on both sides. In 1620, a movement began to change the name of "Warresqueak County" to "Isle of Wight County" after the island in the English Channel, which was eventually done in 1637.
The Daughters of the American Revolution state that Ensign Washer had a daughter named Margaret (Polly). Little if anything more is known about Ensign Washer or what may have become of him.
Legacy Washer's name features on the monument to the first House of Burgesses, which was also the first representative assembly in English North America, located in Jamestown and dedicated by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities in 1907.
See also List of members of the Virginia House of Burgesses
References
Further reading Boddie, John Bennett. Colonial Surry. Richmond: Dietz Press, 1948. . Retrieved July 20, 2011. Boddie, John Bennett. Seventeenth century Isle of Wight County, Virginia: a history of the county of Isle of Wight, Virginia, during the seventeenth century, including abstracts of the county records. Chicago, Chicago Law Print. Co. 1938. . Retrieved July 20, 2011. Daughters of the American Revolution. National historical magazine, Volume 71. Published by National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1937. Retrieved July 21, 2011. Henings, Statutes at Large, shown as Virginia, William Waller Hening, Virginia (Colony). The statutes at large: being a collection of all the laws of Virginia. Volume 1, Richmond, VA: Printed by and for Samuel Pleasants, Junior, printer to the Commonwealth, 1809–1823. . Retrieved July 15, 2011. Henry, William Wirt. The First Legislative Assembly in America. In Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1894. . Retrieved July 21, 2011. McCartney, Martha W. Virginia immigrants and adventurers, 1607-1635: a biographical dictionary. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2007. . Stanard, William G. and Mary Newton Stanard. The Virginia Colonial Register. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell's Sons Publishers, 1902. , Retrieved July 15, 2011. Tyler, Lyon Gardiner in Encyclopedia of Virginia biography. New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1915. . Retrieved July 21, 2011.