Philip Ludwell

Philip Cottington Ludwell ( 1638 – 1723) was an English-born planter and politician in colonial Virginia who sat on the Virginia Governor's Council, the first of three generations of men with the same name to do so, and briefly served as speaker of the House of Burgesses. In addition to operating plantations in Virginia using enslaved labor, Ludwell also served as the first governor of the Carolinas, during the colony's transition from proprietary rule to royal colony. Early life and family Philip Ludwell was born in Bruton, Somerset, England. He emigrated to Virginia circa 1661, where his brother Thomas Ludwell was secretary of the colony, and fellow Bruton native William Berkeley served several terms as governor, first under the London Company, and then pursuant to royal commission after Virginia became a royal colony. He married Lucy Higginson Burwell, the daughter of Captain Robert Higginson and widow of Major Lewis Burwell I and later of William Bernard. They had a son Philip Ludwell Jr. and a daughter Lucy who married future burgess Daniel Parke II, and whose daughter (also Lucy) would marry William Byrd II. Career In 1667, Philip Ludwell became captain of the James City County militia. After marrying his first wife and becoming the guardian for her son Lewis Burwell who had not reached legal age, he operated Fairfield, the Burwell family's plantation on Carter's Creek in Gloucester County, probably until about 1675 (both her death and when her son Lewis Burwell reached legal age and married for the first time).