JOURDAN'S JOURNEY

JOURDAN'S JOURNEY

Plantation Home of Samuel Jourdan

JOURDAN'S JOURNEY -- The plantation took its name from its founder, Captain Samuel Jourdan, and embraced about 450 acres in 1625. Also he established Beggar's Point in 1619. In the 1619 Assembly he represented Charles City. He was one of a committee of four appointed to examine the first books of the power of the "Greate Charter." In 1622 he received a share of Company stock as well as 100 acres in "Digges His Hundred." At this time he was listed as "Samuel Jordan of Charles Hundred, gentleman." He died 1623.

Jourdan's Journey seems to have prospered. In 1624 Nathaniel Causy represented the plantation in Assembly. Captain Jourdan came to Virginia 1609 which was just before the starving time. He patented 450 acres just below the confluence of the Appotomax and the James Rivers, or Beggar's Point. The same year he represented his own and neighboring plantations in the First House of Burgesses. When the Indian massacre occurred in 1622, Jourdan's Journey and all its people were saved. Samuel Jourdan gathered the neighbors in his home which he fortified "where he lived in despite of the enemy."

The minister who conducted his funeral proposed the same day to his widow (Cecily Jourdan) telling her she needed someone to protect her. However, she soon became engaged to Colonel William Farrar and later married him and moved to henrico County, Virginia.

In 1676 at Jordan's Journey the volunteers of Charles City, south of the James River, assembled to join in Bacon's Rebellion.

About the time of Cecily's marital troubles, the local courts initiated the first breach of promise suit. She won out. The minister was required to pledge 500 pounds and "never to have any title or claim on her." The Council then enacted a law which prohibited women from engaging themselves to several men at the same time.

(Source: First Seventeen Years in Virginia 1607-24, published by Anniversary Celebration Corportation, 1957, by Charles E. Hatch, Jr., Page 67.)

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