Person:George Dillard (10)

George landed at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony after a voyage from England in 1650, or shortly before, likely as a young, illiterate indentured servant (as were most immigrants of that period). 1650 was, indeed very early in the colonization of the North American continent, and as such, George would be considered one of the original settlers.

After his indentured servitude obligation was fulfilled, George prospered. In 1665, he received a headright land grant of 250 acres in New Kent County, Virginia (later King and Queen County), adjacent to land he already owned, located “upon branches of Tassitiomp Swamp”. Later land records refer to a “Geo. Dillard Plantation on the N. side of Mattapony River”.

Because of his servitude obligation and the necessity to establish himself in the Colonies, it is probable George married and began raising a family late in life. It is speculated he married about 1666, although no data exist on his marriage or his wife. Despite the hardships, George succeeded and prospered. One genealogist sums up his life as follows: “In [Colonial] Virginia, a land where many more than half the new people died, George Dillard was a survivor. Where there were four men to every woman, George had a wife. During a severe depression from 1660, until near the end of the century, George Dillard became a land owner, something achieved by a small percentage of those who came as indentured servants and had to work four, five, or seven years … to pay their transportation expense. We do not know the hardships George endured during those years when he had no personal freedom, when he had to do as his master directed, when he could not marry.”

Little is known of George because in colonial America few records were kept and many of those that were kept were destroyed or burned. Nor is anything known about his wife or female children. He had five known sons, all of whom married and established families in the Virginia colony.