Cecily Jordan Farrar

Cecily Jordan Farrar was one of the earlier women settlers of colonial Jamestown, Virginia. She arrived in the colony as a child in 1610 and was established as one of the few female ancient planters by 1620. After her husband Samuel Jordan died in 1623, Cecily obtained oversight of his 450-acre plantation, Jordan's Journey. In the Jamestown Muster of 1624-1625, she is one of fewer than 10 women who are mentioned as a head of household, and the only woman listed as sharing the head of household with a man she was not married to. In the year of Samuel Jordan's death, she set off the first breach of promise lawsuit in English North America when she chose the marriage proposal of William Farrar, who was bonded to help settle her estate, over that of Greville Pooley, who claimed his proposal had already been accepted. In 1625, Cecily prevailed when Pooley withdrew his claim. Afterward, she married William Farrar. The early years in the Virginia Colony Nothing is known of Cecily's life and background before she came to the New World. She was among the earlier women to arrive in Jamestown, Virginia. When Cecily arrived onboard Swan in August 1611, she was around 10 years old and one of 20 women among the 260 passengers. Her arrival was part of a series of transports that were intended to replenish Jamestown's population. During the previous year's Starving Time, Jamestown had been reduced to only 60 people, and was saved from abandonment by the last-minute arrival of an earlier transport in June 1610 led by Lord De La Warr. Cecily's first years in the colony were during the first Anglo-Powhatan war, which resulted in the deaths of over 400 settlers and Powhatan people and only ended with John Rolfe's marriage to Pocahantas in 1614. In 1618, the Great Charter enacted by the Virginia Company as instructions to Virginia's Governor George Yeardley established a grant for colonists who had lived in Virginia for at least three years and had paid their way to the colony through their own money or working off their debt for being transported. The instructions called these colonists ancient planters, and each received a grant of 100 acres of land as their dividend for investing in the Virginia Company. She is identified as an ancient planter in a 1620 patent and was one of the very few women that received this grant.