William Byrd III William Byrd III William Byrd III (September 6, 1728January 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
Charles Ridgely III Charles Ridgely III Captain Charles Ridgely III (1733–1790) was a colonial Maryland planter and ironmonger. Ridgely was born in Maryland Province in 1733 to Colonel Charles Ridgely II (1702-1772), ("Charles the Merchant") and Rachel Howard. With his father and brother, he established the Northampton Iron Works just north of future Towsontown /Towson, under what is now Loch Raven Reservoir. He married Rebecca Dorsey, the daughter of Caleb Dorsey, an ironmonger in Anne Arundel County. Ridgely built the massive Hampton Mansion (now a National Historic Site), after the American Revolutionary War, between 1783 and 1790. By the time it was completed,