William Nelson was an American merchant, planter, and councilor. He served as governor of colonial Virginia.
Background
William Nelson was born in 1711 in Yorktown, Virginia, United States. He was a notable member of the first generation of the Nelson family who bore so vital a part in eighteenth-century Virginia. He was the son of Margaret Reade and Thomas Nelson, "Scotch Tom, " as he was called, who emigrated to Virginia at the close of the seventeenth century from Penrith, on the English side of the Scotch border, where the Nelsons were numerous and were occupied in various trades and callings. Scotch Tom settled about 1700 at Yorktown, where he became a successful merchant and landholder.
Education
Nelson, as a 15-year-old attended the University of Notre Dame (which accepted high school students) at the time for two years which he described as "Botany Bay for bad boys. "
Career
As early as 1738 William Nelson was made sheriff of York and represented that county in the House of Burgesses from 1742 to 1744. He became a member of the Virginia council in 1744 and retained membership until his death in 1772. He served as president of the council and hence was generally known as President Nelson. On the death of Governor Botetourt he was ex officio acting governor from October 1770 to August 1771. He was a member of the Committee of Correspondence of the Virginia Assembly, established in 1759, and took a leading part in opposing the taxation policy of England in the decades before the Revolution. In 1770 he declared that the colonists were learning to make many things for themselves and boasted that he wore a "good suit of cloth of my son's wool, manufactured as well as my shirts, in Albemarle, my shoes, hose, Buckles, Wigg & hat, etc. , of our own country, and in these we improve every year in Quantity as well as Quality".
He patented lands widely scattered over Virginia, thus adding to the considerable patrimony inherited from his father. He cooperated in the forming of the Dismal Swamp Company of 1763 to take up and drain the vast domain of the Dismal Swamp.
For many years he served on the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary.
On his death in 1772 Nelson was buried in the churchyard at Yorktown.
Nelson was a zealous communicant of the Anglican church and stanchly sought to train his children in that faith and with something of austerity he censored their social habits.
Interests
Sport & Clubs
Nelson was keenly concerned in the horse racing of his generation and is credited with having promoted distance racing at the earliest subscription meets.
Connections
In 1738 Nelson married Elizabeth, only daughter of Nathaniel Burwell, of Gloucester County, and Elizabeth Carter, second daughter of "King Carter" and his wife Judith Armistead. There were of this union six children who reached maturity, among them Thomas Nelson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary governor of Virginia.