Burwell Bassett

Burwell Bassett, Jr. (March 18, 1764 – February 26, 1841) was an American planter and politician from New Kent County and for two decades from Williamsburg in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Like his father, he served in both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly, and in addition won election (and lost re-election) several times to the United States House of Representatives, where he served for more than a decade in three different districts, because of census-required reorganizations. Early and family life Born in at the family plantation, known as Eltham, in New Kent County, to the former Anna Marie Dandridge and her husband Burwell Bassett Sr. He was their second of four sons, and fifth of the couple's eight children, and received a private education appropriate to his class, then attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Although he was his father's principal heir and married twice, he had no children. Both sides of his family were among the First Families of Virginia. His father, Burwell Bassett Sr. and maternal grandfather Bartholomew Dandridge were patriots and served many terms in the Virginia General Assembly, with father also serving in the Virginia Ratification Convention for the U.S. Constitution and Bartholomew Dandridge also serving on what is now known as the Virginia Supreme Court. Furthermore, his aunt Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was married to General (later President) George Washington. He was also the first cousin of President William Henry Harrison. Bassett married twice. On January 10, 1788, he married Elizabeth McCarty, the daughter of planter and delegate Col. Daniel McCarty of Westmoreland County. After her death, Bassett remarried in 1800, to Philadelphia Ann Claiborne. Career