Person:William Byrd (33)

William Byrd, III
b.6 SEP 1729
d.1 Jan 1777
m. 9 MAY 1724
  1. Anne Byrd1724/25 - 1757
  2. Maria Byrd1726/27 - 1744
  3. Jane Byrd1727 -
  4. William Byrd, III1729 - 1777
  • HWilliam Byrd, III1729 - 1777
m. 1748
m. 14 APR 1748
  • HWilliam Byrd, III1729 - 1777
  • WMary Willing1740 - 1814
  1. Charles Willing Byrd1770 - 1828
Facts and Events
Name William Byrd, III
Gender Male
Alt Birth[2] 6 Sep 1728
Birth[1] 6 SEP 1729
Marriage 1748 Marriage of Byrd, William Evelyn III
Marriage 14 APR 1748 to Elizabeth Hill Carter
Death[2][1] 1 Jan 1777
Alt Death[2] 2 Jan 1777

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

William Byrd III (September 6, 1728 – January 1 or January 2, 1777) was the son of William Byrd II and the grandson of William Byrd I. He inherited his family's estate of approximately 179,000 acres of land in Virginia and continued their planter prestige as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses.

He chose to fight in the French and Indian War rather than spend much time in Richmond. In 1756 he was colonel of the Second Virginia Regiment.

William Byrd III had a reputation as a notorious gambler. He initiated what was said to have been the first major horse race in the New World, involving other planters Samuel Ogle, John Tayloe II, Francis Thornton, and Benjamin Tasker, Jr.

Byrd III eventually fathered five children by his first wife (Eliza Carter, m. 1748, d. 1760), and fathered ten more by his second wife, Mary Willing, daughter of Charles Willing of Philadelphia. After he squandered the Byrd fortune on building his magnificent mansion at Westover, gambling, and bad investments, Byrd III parceled up much of of land he had inherited from his father and sold it off to raise money to pay his debts. He also sold the enslaved African laborers who had worked on his estate. Although his sale of land and slaves generated a huge sum it still was not enough to pay off his creditors. Later, Byrd resorted to a lottery, the prizes of which would come from his estate at the falls of the James, however the lottery failed to generate sufficient revenue.

Despondent and nearly broke, Byrd III committed suicide on January 1 or 2, 1777. He was buried in the cemetery at the old Westover Church.

The 10 children of his second marriage (to Mary Willing) were: Maria Horsmanden Byrd, Evelyn Taylor Byrd, Charles Willing Byrd (died as child), Abby Byrd, Anne Willing Byrd, William Boyd Byrd, Charles Willing Byrd, Dorothy Byrd (died as child), Jane Byrd and Richard Willing Byrd.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at William Byrd III. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
  1. 1.0 1.1 Armistead / Burwell Family, Web Page of John Marshall,
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 William Byrd III, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (Online: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.).