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Nicholas Martiau
Captain of the Militia, Military Engineer, Planter, Wine Maker, Huguenot
A Biographical Sketch
Martiau was educated as a military engineer in England. While in England, he was naturalized as an Englishman by royal decree1 Records of the French Huguenot congregation on Threadneedle Street in London in 1615 reveal he was a godfather at the May 11th baptism of Richard Toche.
 Nicholas Martiau |
In 1619 Martiau was given power of attorney by Lord Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon. He became Lord Hasting's agent in the Virginia Company. On
11 May 1620, he left England on the
ship, Francis Bonaventure and arrived in Virginia in June. He was
among persons listed in the first census of Virginia, taken in 1624.
Since he was a military engineer, Nicholas was placed in charge of
military fortifications and designed Fort Yorktown. He also became a
member of the House of Burgesses, the oldest continuous legislative
body in the western hemisphere.  On the Ile de Ré, France is a statue of George Washington. In the base of the statue is a medallion depicting Nicolas Martiau.3 Here, you see a copy . |
The Earl of Huntingdon, a member of the Virginia Company greatly influenced the adventurous Huguenot1 who was a captain in the militia during an Indian uprising and Justice of the County of York, a Planter and Wine Maker, as well as a military engineer. In fact it was Huntingdon who convinced Martiau to take up military engineering.
In 1622, following
an Indian massacre,
Capt. Martiau was sent with a company of men up the James River to
Falling Creek where the first iron works erected in the colony had
been destroyed and where the inhabitants had suffered heavily. He
lead a raid against the Indians at Falling Creek after the 1622
massacre.
Martiau first resided at Elizabeth City County. It was from this community he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses, sitting in the Assembly of 1623-24. It was in 1624-25 he married Jane Berkeley. The exact date is not known, but it was on 12 December 1625 he noted in a letter to the Earl of Huntingdon. “ I am now both a husband and a father.” It was Elizabeth City in 1625 Elizabeth Martiau was born, the oldest child born to Nicholas and Jane Martiau.
The family lived in Elizabeth City for several years, until moving permenantly to land on the tract of land known as Chiskiacke. He was again elected to the House of Burgesses representing Chiskiake and the Isle of Kent. It was also here he was appointed a justice of York County, an office he held for more than twenty years; from 12 July 1633 to 24 September 1655. Martiau was granted 1,300 acres of land in March 1639 in the County of Charles River; 700 acres for the transportation into the colony of fourteen persons and 600 acres for transporting himself, his wife and ten persons to Chiskiack in its first year. Dangers of Indian attack were removed in 1644. Martiau was granted, two land grants, one in 1654 Westmoreland County (Book One), and a two thousand acres of land (Westmoreland Deed Book No.3, pages 312 and 363) the following year.
2Early Immigrants to Virginia from the 1500s and 1600s
3Statue of George Washington, with a medallion of his ancestor from Ile de Ré, Nicolas Martiau.
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