Richard E. Byrd the South Pole by air. However, his claim to have reached the North Pole is disputed. Byrd was born in Winchester, Virginia, the son of Esther Bolling (Flood) and Richard Evelyn Byrd Sr. He was a descendant of one of the First Families of Virginia. His ancestors include planter John Rolfe and his wife Pocahontas, William Byrd II of Westover Plantation, who established Richmond, and Robert "King" Carter, a colonial governor. He was the brother of Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, a dominant figure in the Virginia Democratic Party from the 1920s until the 1960s; their father
Richard E. Byrd served as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates for a time. On January 20, 1915, Richard married Marie Donaldson Ames (d. 1974). He would later name a region of Antarctic land he discovered "Marie Byrd Land" after her. They had four children – Richard Evelyn Byrd III, Evelyn Bolling Byrd Clarke, Katharine Agnes Byrd Breyer, and Helen Byrd Stabler. By late 1924, the Byrd family moved into a large brownstone house at 9 Brimmer Street in Boston's fashionable Beacon Hill neighborhood that had been purchased by Marie's father, a wealthy industrialist. On June 8, 1912, Byrd graduated from the