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John Mercer of Stafford’s Marlborough Point owned a vast and renowned library which he used to educate both his nephew George Mason (IV) and his son John Francis Mercer. Both were delegates to the U. S. Constitutional Convention who refused to sign the final document because it lacked a declaration or bill of rights. Mercer,…

By Marion Brooks Robinson Until the late 1930s, this large fish, weighing between 60 and 75 pounds and measuring 5 to 6 feet long, was caught regularly in the waters just below the fall line in the Rappahannock River. My father had a trap, known as a “fall” trap, used mainly for catching herring, but…

Falmouth – Westward Expansion “Gateway to the West” By Marion Brooks Robinson The first English Colony in the New World was established in what was to become the state of Virginia. In the early part of the 17th century the states many waterways were the only “roads.” Rivers emptying into the Chesapeake Bay were the…

George Brent, nephew of Giles (I), Margaret, and Mary Brent, joined them in Stafford in 1673. As a young man he was sent from England to reside with them “to learn how to live.” He certainly accomplished this; he later became captain of the Militia, lawyer, attorney general of the Colony, and Stafford representative to…

The story of Stafford’s first first permanent English settlers, the Brents. begins at Lark Stoke, their ancestral home in England. In 1638, Giles Brent (I), along with sisters Mary and Margaret, sailed on the “Elizabeth” to the new world and settled on Kent Island in southern Maryland. Giles Brent (I) became a prominent Maryland gentleman…

This image shows Wide Water Peninsula today. At the tip is Brent’s Point, where the Brents established their home. Giles (I) and his wife, Mary, built a home around 1646 and named it “Peace.” The Brents were the northernmost English residents in Virginia. When settlers pushed northward to patent land (c. 1651), “Peace” became their…

A Stafford elementary school was named in honor of Margaret Brent. After many successful ventures, Margaret Brent died in Stafford County in 1671. Among her land holdings were the original site of Alexandria, which she had owned since 1654 [the town would later be named for another Staffordian, John Alexander]; and the future site of…

Before joining her brother and his wife in Virginia, Margaret Brent made a name for herself in Maryland. She was arguably the most remarkable person in a remarkable clan. Born in 1601, she was the seventh child of Sir Richard Brent (1573-1652) and Lady Elizabeth Willoughby de Broke. With her brother Giles Brent and other…

Sisters Margaret and Mary left Maryland and joined Giles (I) and his wife. The sisters resided at “Peace” and the Brents built another house at Brent’s Point and named it “Retirement.” They traded with the Indians, no doubt aided by Mary (Kittamaqund) Brent’s linguistic skills and cultural knowledge. They preserved the peace, maintained their way-station,…

Giles Brent (II), representing a darker side of the generally positive union between his English father and Indian mother, was born about 1652. He reportedly dwelt in “two worlds.” His father and cousin had established themselves in respectable society, but Giles (II) lived a frontier existence and learned the Indian language. After his father’s death…

After the French Revolution of 1685, some 300,000 French Protestant Huguenots left France for Europe and America. George Brent, although Catholic, decided that something should be done when these refugees came to Stafford. He along with three other Staffordians, (Richard Foote, Nicholas Hayward, and Robert Bristow) petitioned the Roman Catholic King of England, James II,…

(First American Catholic archbishop and founder of Georgetown College [now University] was connected with the Brents of Stafford.) It was to Stafford that Father John Carroll, S.J., sailed from England. Born in 1735 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, John Carroll was the brother of Daniel Carroll II (“The Commissioner”), a signer of the U. S. Constitution,…