Edmund Jenings (governor)

Early life and education

His father Sir Edmund Jenings was a barrister and Member of Parliament from Ripon in Yorkshire, England. His mother Margaret was the daughter of Sir Edward Barkham, 1st Baronet, of South Acre, and wife Frances Berney, and granddaughter of Sir Edward Barkham, a merchant who became the lord mayor of London in 1621-1622, and of his wife Jane Crouch. Edmund was their third son. His elder brother Jonathan became M.P. for Ripon, and this Edmund named his Virginia plantation "Ripon Hall".

Career

Emigrating to Virginia when perhaps 20 years old, Jenings settled in York County near the colonial capital (which moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg during his service as discussed below). Appointed the colony's attorney general in 1680 (accounts differ as to whether Jenings arrived with a commission from England or a simple letter of introduction),

Colonial officer to governor

As attorney general, one of Jening's responsibilities remained resolving the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion, nearly a decade earlier. Jenings did so in part by not confiscating the estates of all former rebels after their deaths, but allowing them be left in the hands of their nearest relatives.

In 1684-1685 Jenings accompanied Col. William Byrd, Virginia Governor Lord Howard of Effingham, New York Governor Col. Thomas Dongan, Ralph Wormeley Jr., Stevens V. Courtland, John Spragg, and magistrates from Albany, New York to negotiate with the Seneca. This negotiation helped secure a treaty with the Senecas and other northern tribes. In 1696, when Wormeley was having difficulties fulfilling his duties as the colony's secretary of state, Jenings was named his deputy. On January 1, 1702, the King's Council formally named Jenings as the Colony's Secretary. But it was not until Wormeley's death that Jenings presented his commission to the Virginia governor's council, on June 20, 1702. The following year he was given leave to go to England a second time, and as in the two previous years, petitioned the House of Burgesses to receive the commissions owed him for issuing appointments as that job required. William Cocke received the royal warrant as the colonial secretary in 1712, but when Cocke died in 1720, Jenings again was appointed the colony's secretary, this time by Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood.

Jenings may have become a member of the Governor's Council as early as 1684, but the next April the Council ruled that if Jenings was a member of that body, he had to resign as attorney general, and no evidence exists that he did so, and in fact received some payments for his legal work. The English government revised its colonial structure and in 1696 created the Board of Trade to handle colonial relations. About the same time, the House of Burgesses decided to move the colony's capital from Jamestown (notoriously unhealthy in summers) to Williamsburg, and Jenings clearly supervised much of the transition in 1699-1700, though the capacity in which he did so is unclear. Moreover, one of his legal jobs was to compile the colony's laws for transmission to the Board of Trade, and the Speaker of the House of Burgesses found the result inadequate in 1699, and so did not appoint Jenings to that committee until one of the original committeemen (Edward Hill) died. Thus, some accounts list Jenings as becoming a councilor in 1699 or 1701. Another controversy involved whether Jenings overstayed his leave during trips to England, particularly an extended trip in 1704-1705 in which he met with the Board of Trade in London, or another trip in 1711 in which he met with Lady Fairfax and was named as agent for the Northern Neck Proprietary (together with Thomas Lee replacing Robert Carter from 1713 to 1719).,

Meanwhile, as the member of the Governor's Council with longest service, Jenings eventually became President of the Council of Virginia. Thus when Col. Edward Nott died in office and his successor Col. Robert Hunter was captured at sea by the French, Jenings became the acting governor from August 1706 to June 1710, but declined a second term at the end of his life citing feeble health. Jenings did not call the House of Burgesses into session during his time as acting Governor, and showed little initiative before the arrival of Gov. Alexander Spotswood.

Jenings' most recent biographer details the factional strife in Virginia in the early 19th century, in which Jenings was perceived as too strenuously defending Gov. Francis Nicholson and part of a faction including Ralph Wormeley Jr. and Richard Lee II, and opposed by several powerful councilors, particularly Robert Carter, Rev. James Blair and Benjamin Harrison II. In any event, several high-ranking Virginians accused Jenings of mental illness in his final year, so he may have resigned from the council in March 1725. Lt. Gov. Drysdale shortly after he announced that he was returning to England, formally removed Jenings from the council, on June 25, 1726. Thus, when Drysdale died on July 22, 1726, Robert Carter became the colony's acting governor for about a year.

Planter and land speculator

Jenings speculated in land in the Virginia colony, and also grew and shipped tobacco, using enslaved labor by at least his final years, although many records have been lost. Virginia's last colonial capital, Williamsburg, in whose platting this man had significant involvement, before becoming chartered as a town in its own right was split down main street between York County and James City County, Virginia. In 1686 Jenings was among the prominent men who asked to patent land on Pamunkey Neck (now in King William County) when such was legally available (a previous treaty with the Pamunkey having restricted resettlement), and the following year he purchased a mill on St. Andrews Creek in York County. In October 1691 Jenings patented 6,513 acres in Henrico County on Tuckahoe Creek and the James River. When the town of Yorktown was planned, about 12 miles downstream on the York River from Jenings's main Ripon Hall plantation, Jenings secured a town lot with building. The following year he was among the Council members ordered to build a house in Jamestown. In 1696 he and his wife sold land farmed by a tenant in Hampton parish (probably in Elizabeth City County. In 1706 Jenings was awarded 4,000 acres in King William County upstream of York County in recognition of his service to the crown. Thus that year Jenings paid taxes on 200 acres in James City County, 4000 acres in King William County and 1500 acres in York County.

Local offices

Among the local offices Jenings held were: the James City County sheriff in 1681, clerk of York County, one of the churchwarden of Bruton parish in 1691, and at some point probably in the early 1700s the commander in chief of the York County militia, with the rank of colonel. Jenings also grew and shipped large quantities of tobacco and was collector of customs for the James River's Upper District (which included Henrico County).

Personal life

Edmund married Frances, the daughter of Henry Corbin of Buckingham House, and wife Alice Eltonhead, and had several children. Frances died in London in 1713 and is likely buried at St. Clement's Dane's. While his son Peter died before reaching adulthood, the other son Edmund Jenings III (1731-1819) (this man's grandson, and a daughter and her husband) returned to the mother country around the time of the American Revolutionary War, practiced at Lincoln's Inn and died in Yorkshire. Edmund Jenings III also traveled back to the colonies and presented a portrait of the Earl of Chatham to the Gentlemen of Westmoreland County, Virginia in 1769. This man's daughter, Elizabeth Jenings also returned to Yorkshire, and married Robert Porteus. He son (this man's grandson) was Beilby Porteus, Bishop of Chester and London. Two other daughters remained in Virginia: Frances, who married future burgess Charles Grymes, and Margaret, who married Issac Hill in 1708). Their brother William Jenings also moved to Maryland. His great-grandson (son of Edmund Jr.'s daughter also named Ariana) was Edmund Randolph, who became Governor of Virginia and the first Attorney General of the United States under George Washington. However, his relation to Thomas Jennings (1736-1796) who became Maryland's attorney general is unclear.

Death and legacy

In early June 1726, John Randolph visited Jenings and found him suffering from a palsy, likely a stroke or Parkinson's disease, barely able to write, and composing his thoughts only with difficulty. However, when William Robertson as the council's clerk informed Jenings he was being removed for incompetence, Jenings resisted.

After Jenings' death, creditor Robert Carter I foreclosed on the mortgage and took over Jenings' main Ripon Hall plantation. A plaque commemorating Jenings was placed at Bruton Church in 1907, but neither his last will and testament nor other personal papers have survived.

References

before= Edward Nott| title= Colonial Governor of Virginia | years= 1706-1708 | after= Robert Hunter

References

1. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (1915) vol. 1, p. 57-58
2. "Edmund Jenings (1659–1727)". Encyclopedia Virginia.
3. (2015). "The Yorkshire Family of Edmund Jenings and Peter Jenings of Virginia". The American Genealogist.
4. [http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/jennings-edmund-1626-91 History of Parliament Online - Jennings, Edmund]
5. possible start date disagreement in "Journal, March 1727: Journal Book D.D." ''Journals of the Board of Trade and Plantations: Volume 5, January 1723 - December 1728.'' Ed. K H Ledward. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1928. 314-321. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/jrnl-trade-plantations/vol5/pp314-321 British History Online] Retrieved 25 May 2021
6. Maurer Maurer, Notes on the Honorable Edmund Jenings (1659-1727). Virginia Magazine of History and Biography vol. 52, p. 249 et seq. (1944)
7. Jefferson Wallace, "Bacon's Rebellion: Notes from the Records of Henrico County— Now First Published," The Virginia Historical Magazine. I (July, 1891), 20-23.
8. McCartney p. 230
9. Maurer p. 251
10. Maurer pp. 253-254
11. Maurer p. 253
12. Maurer p. 256
13. Maurer pp. 257-258
14. Knight, Thomas Daniel. "The Family of Edmund Jenings and Peter Jenings of Virginia." ''[[The American Genealogist]]'', 87 (2015): 161-70, 308-16.
15. Tyler
16. Maurer p. 254
17. McCartney, p. 231
18. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Dictionary of Virginia Biography (1915) Vol. 1, p. 264
19. American Genealogist 87:163-164
20. Dorman, John Frederick. (2004). "Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607-1624/5.". Genealogical Publishing Co.
21. Maurer, p.260