William Byrd II

Portrait of William Byrd II

William Byrd II (28 March 1674 – 26 August 1744) was a planter and author from Charles City County, Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia.

Biography

William Byrd II was born at Westover Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, and educated at Felsted School, England, for the law. He was a member of the King's Counsel for 37 years. He returned to the Colony following his schooling in England, lived in lordly estate on his plantation, Westover Plantation, and gathered the most valuable library in the Virginia Colony, numbering some 4000 books. He was the founder of Richmond and provided the land where the city was laid out in 1737. His father, Colonel William Byrd I, came from England to settle in Virginia.

William Byrd II was a fellow of the Royal Society of Great Britain. He was the author of the Westover Manuscripts, published in 1841 under three titles, The History of the Dividing Line, A Journey to the Land of Eden, and A Progress to the Mines, and most famously, The Secret Diaries of William Byrd of Westover, all remarkable for their style, wit, keen observation, and intrinsic interest to all. His writings have been published in later editions.

Byrd's son, William Byrd III, inherited his family land but chose to fight in the French and Indian War rather than spend much time in Richmond. After he squandered the Byrd fortune, Byrd III parceled up the family estate and sold lots of 100 acres (0.40 km²) in 1768.

Byrd Park in Richmond is named for William Byrd II. He is related to the explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd, for whom Richard Evelyn Byrd Flying Field (the original name for Richmond International Airport) was named, as well as Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Harry Flood Byrd and U.S. Senator Harry Flood Byrd Jr.

William Byrd II was buried at Westover Plantation.

Diaries

The first diary runs from 1709-1712 and was not published until the 1940s. It was originally written in a shorthand code and deals mostly with the day-to-day aspects of Byrd’s life, many of the entries containing the same formulaic phrases. A typical entry read like this:

[October] 6. I rose at 6 o’clock and said my prayers and ate milk for breakfast. Then I proceeded to Williamsburg, where I found all well. I went to the capitol where I sent for the wench to clean my room and when I came I kissed her and felt her, for which God forgive me. . . . About 10 o’clock I went to my lodgings. I had good health but wicked thoughts, God forgive me.

A man of great learning who usually read some Greek or Latin text every morning, and a man of great passion who was forever making vows of repentance and then promptly breaking them, Byrd was not uncomfortable with the contradictions in himself. Though his diary recounts his many romantic exploits (including those with his own wife) he never shows much more than the most cursory remorse for his less savory actions. Indeed, it is difficult for the reader to be much more than amazed at the brazenness of a man who can thank God for having good thoughts right after he recounts having a tryst with another man’s wife.

In addition to the passages recounting his many infidelities, the diary also contains a faithful record of the disobedience of Byrd’s slaves and his subsequent punishment. Byrd was not exactly a kindly master, and beat his slaves often, and sometimes devised other punishments even more cruel and unusual:

September 3, 1709: I ate roast chicken for dinner. In the afternoon I beat Jenny for throwing water on the couch.
December 1, 1709: Eugene was whipped again for pissing in bed and Jenny for concealing it.
December 3, 1709: Eugene pissed abed again for which I made him drink a pint of piss.

Byrd often quarreled with his wife over the treatment of their slaves. These disagreements did not bode well for the slaves in question:

[1712 May] 22. . . . My wife caused Prue to be whipped violently notwithstanding I desired not, which provoked me to have Anaka whipped likewise who had deserved it much more . . .

Byrd’s diary is not all about his encounters with women or his treatment of his slaves, however. He was, for a time, receiver general of Virginia and owned the large plantation (and large debts) his father left him upon his death. In 1709, the year he began his secret diary, he was appointed to the Council of Virginia, which meant that he spent much of his time in London. Many of the entries in his diary deal with affairs of state and the running of a plantation, as well as his ongoing education. He was a man of great learning, and most entries record which Greek or Hebrew text he read that morning (or gives the reason he was unable to read), and he was known for his extensive private library. He also mentions in nearly every entry having “danced my dance,” meaning he performed his calisthenic exercises.

Byrd’s secret diary unfolds a picture of a man of many faults who tried daily to fix them and to improve himself in general, and who did not worry overmuch when he failed to do so.

Bibliography

The Westover Manuscripts (1841), comprising :

• The History of the Dividing Line
• A Journey to the Land of Eden
• A Progress to the Mines
• The Secret Diaries of William Byrd of Westover

External links

• Biography at Virtualology.com (under his father)
• Encyclopedia Virginia: William Byrd (1674–1744)
• [1]
• William Byrd II at Find-A-Grave
• Harrison, Mrs. Burton (1891). "Colonel William Byrd of Westover, Virginia". The Century; a popular quarterly. 42 (2). The Century Company: 163–179. Retrieved 2008-11-28. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |day= and |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)