SPOTSWOOD (SPOTTSwooD or SPOTTISwOOD), ALEXANDER (1676-1940)

This article appears in Volume V25, Page 735 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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SPOTSWOOD (SPOTTSwooD or SPOTTISwOOD), ALEXANDER (1676-1940) , American colonial

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

, was born, of an old Scotch family, in Tangier, Africa, in 1676. He served under Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession, and was wounded at Blenheim. He became lieutenant

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of Virginia in June 1710, when he was received with some enthusiasm, because he brought to the colony the privilege of habeas corpus; his term as governor closed in September 1722probably because he meddled in ecclesiastical matters; but he remained in Virginia, living near his ironworks in Germanna, a settlement of Germans, on the Rapidan in

Spottsylvania

SPOTTSYLVANIA

county (named in his honour) and he was deputy postmaster-general of the colonies from 1.730 to 1739. He was the first representative of the British government in America who fully appreciated the value of the western territory. As governor he recommended the

establishment

ESTABLISHMENT (0. Fr. establissement, Fr. etablissement,
late
- LATE
Norm. Fr. establishement, from O. Fr. establir, Fr. etablir, Lat. stabilire, to make stable)

of a Virginia company to carry on trade with the
Indians, he urged upon the provincial government and also upon the British authorities the wisdom of constructing forts along the frontier, and he personally organized and conducted an exploring expedition (Aug. 17 to Sept. 20, 1716) into the Shenandoah Valley reaching the water-parting between the Atlantic and the

Ohio

OHIO

river.' These ambitious and expensive schemes, coupled with his haughty and overbearing conduct, involved him in a controversy with the rather niggardly

House

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

of Burgesses. He developed the iron industry of Virginia, promoted the religious education of the Indians and tried to advance the interests of education, and especially of the College of William and Mary. In 1740 he was commissioned major-general to conduct the expedition against Cartagena, but died while attending to the embarcation, at Annapolis,

Maryland

MARYLAND

, on the 7th of June 1740. His library he left to the College of William and Mary.
See R. A. Brock (ed.), " The Official Letters of Alexander Spots-

wood

" (with a memoir), in The Collections of the Virginia Historical Society (2 vols., Richmond, 1882-1885).

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