Edward Waters (1588 - bef. 1630)

Born 30 Nov 1588 in William, Great Hornemead, Hertfordshire, England

Ancestors

Husband of Grace (Neale) Robins — married 1620 in Elizabeth City, Virginia

Descendants

Died before 18 Sep 1630 before age 41 in Great Hornemead, Hertfordshire, England

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Biography

Edward Waters is a Qualifying Ancestor of the Jamestowne Society

Edward Waters was a Jamestown colonist.

Edward Waters was born in Great Hornemead, Hertfordshire, England, to William and Alice Waters in 1588. Edward's father had died when he was a small boy, and life prospects were few it would seem. Edward became a mariner. He was twenty years old when he signed on to sail to Virginia. He was an adventurous sort and the idea of being part of some great enterprise must have seem beyond his wildest dreams. One wonders if he had ever been to sea before this, or was this his first journey under sail?

Either way, he could not have known what lay in store for him, and the great struggle just to get to the New World. He boarded the newly built Sea Venture along with a few hundred others. Conditions were cramped, the ship was jammed to the rafters with supplies. It was the middle of July, 1608 when the small flotilla set sail. This fateful ship sailed into a hurricane the afternoon of July 24th. All through the night leaks sprang in the unseasoned seams. Those that were not busy with the sails and rigging spent the night bailing to exhaustion. Even with this effort the hold was filled with nine feet of seawater by morning. They were perilously close to foundering when in the midst of the storm,land was seen. In the middle of the Atlantic, three peaks of sea mounts rose from the depths. The captain ran the ship aground on the reef, and they found themselves on Bermuda. (to be continued)

Besides the actual founding of Jamestown, the most defining moment came with the Massacre of 1622. Because of this tragedy, full musters of the population along with supplies and armaments were taken by order of the crown. These records survive, and provide us most importantly with the names of these men and women. At the time of the massacre in 1622, Waters lived on the south side of the James, and he and his family were taken prisoners by the Nansemond Indians, but were rescued by a boat's crew and carried to Kecaughton, or Elizabeth City, now called Hampton. Edward Waters is listed in Elizabeth Cittie in 1623, along with wife Grace and son William.^[1][2]

At the taking of the census in 1624 he was thirty-nine years of age, and his wife, Grace, who came in 1618 in the ship Diana, was only twenty years old, and at the time they had a son William. In February, 1625, his wife had a daughter named Margaret.

In 1628, Lieut. Edward Waters, whose romantic career had begun in 1609, with the wreck of the "Sea Venture," and his discovery on the Bermuda Is- lands of a vast piece of ambergris worth three million dollars, patented 100 acres adjoining. These two tracts, making 150 acres, or 165 acres as the surveys showed, became vested in George Downes and were long known as Downes' Field (see plat by John Lowry).^[3]

A creek in Upper Elizabeth once bore his name. Governor Pott, in March, 1628-29, made him a commissioner for the district between Southampton River and Fox Hill, and he was a member of the county court and member of House of Burgesses from Elizabeth City County.

-New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. XXXI, p. 393

Will of Edward

His will [...] was signed August 20, 1630, proved September 18, 1630, in which he leaves his only son, William Waters, his lands in Virginia, and directs that all property in England, Virginia, Ireland and elsewhere be sold by advice of his brother, John Waters, of Middleham, Yorkshire, and provision made for his only other heirs, his wife Grace Waters, and daughter Margaret.

-The Waters and Kindred Families

Research Notes

Map of Virginia 1607-1624

Sources

1. ↑ List of the Living and the Dead February 16, 1623 Colonial Virginia Records
2. ↑ Jamestowne Society: Waters, Edward - A8406; baptized 30 November 1589 Hertfordshire, England, died 1630, Elizabeth City Co.: 1625, 1628 (Burgess); (Muster of 1623/4). accessed 3 September 2020
3. ↑ Kecoughtan US GenWeb Archives

• http://espl-genealogy.org/MilesFiles/site/p254.htm#i25356
• Edward Waters in the Jamestown Muster of 1624/5.
• Waters, Philemon Barry. A Genealogical History of the Waters And Kindred Families: In Two Parts. Atlanta, Ga.: Foote & Davies Co., 1903. Pages 12-16.
• Hotten, John Camden. The Original Lists of Persons of Quality; Emigrants; Religious Exiles... London: Hotten, Living & Dead. Page 187. [with wife Grace and son William]

See Also:

• Sea Venture on Wikipedia.org