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John Rolfe ( – March 1622) was an English explorer, farmer and merchant. He is best known for being the husband of Pocahontas and the first settler in the colony of Virginia to successfully cultivate a tobacco crop for export.
He played a crucial role in the Virginia Colony's early economy by introducing a sweeter strain of tobacco from Trinidad, which became a profitable cash crop. Rolfe married Pocahontas, daughter of Native American leader Powhatan, and they had a son named Thomas. Rolfe and Pocahontas traveled to England in 1616 to promote colonization and investment in Virginia. After Pocahontas died, Rolfe returned to Virginia and continued working with tobacco. The tobacco strain cultivated by Rolfe laid the foundation for Virginia's thriving tobacco industry.
/ref> One major inconsistency that shows they are not his parents is that John is known to have had a brother named Henry. After John's death, his brother Henry Rolfe petitioned the Virginia Company for funds from John's Virginia estate, to help pay for the care of John's son Thomas Rolfe who was then in Henry's care. Dorothy Mason and her husband John Rolfe are not known to have had a son named Henry.{William Thorndale, "Two Rolfe Negatives," in The Virginia Genealogist, 34(1990):209-210}
The Third Supply fleet left England in May 1609 destined for Jamestown with seven large ships, towing two smaller pinnaces. In the southern region of the North Atlantic, they encountered a three-day-long storm, thought to have been a severe hurricane. The ships of the fleet became separated. The Sea Venture was taking on water faster than it could be bailed. The admiral of the company, Sir George Somers, took the helm and the ship was deliberately driven onto the reefs of Bermuda to prevent its foundering. All aboard, 150 passengers and crew, and one dog, survived.
Most remained for ten months in Bermuda, (also known as The Somers Isles), while they built two small ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. A number of passengers and crew, however, did not complete this journey. Some had died or been killed, lost at sea (the Sea Venture's long boat had been fitted with a sail, and several men sent to take word to Jamestown, and they were never heard from again), or left behind to maintain England's claim to Bermuda. Because of this, although the Virginia Company's charter was not extended to Bermuda until 1612, the Colony at Bermuda dates its settlement from 1609. Among those left buried in Bermuda were Bermuda Rolfe, the daughter of John.
In May 1610, the two newly constructed ships set sail from Bermuda, with 142 castaways on board, including Rolfe, George Somers, Stephen Hopkins, and Sir Thomas Gates. On arrival at Jamestown, they found the Virginia Colony almost destroyed by famine and disease during what has become known as the Starving Time. Very few supplies from the Third Supply had arrived because the same hurricane that caught the Sea Venture badly affected the rest of the fleet. Only 60 settlers remained alive. It was only through the arrival of the two small ships from Bermuda, and the arrival of another relief fleet commanded by Lord De La Warr on 10 June 1610, that the abandonment of Jamestown was avoided and the colony survived. After finally settling in Rolfe began his long-delayed work with tobacco.
In 1612, Rolfe established Varina Farms, a plantation along the James River about upstream from Jamestown and across the river from Sir Thomas Dale's progressive development at Henricus. The first harvest of four barrels of tobacco leaf was exported from Virginia to England in March 1614. Love and Hate in Jamestown David Price, 2007, p. 186. Soon afterwards, Rolfe and others were exporting vast quantities of the new cash crop. New plantations began growing along the James River, where export shipments could use wharves along the river.
John Rolfe and Pocahontas continued cultivating tobacco with success. In 1616 they were sent to England as guests of the Virginia Company to promote colonization and investment in Virginia. They were accompanied by baby Thomas as well as by the deputy governor of the colony, Sir Thomas Dale, and 12 members of Pocahontas' tribe, including her brother-in-law Tomocomo. They sailed aboard the Treasurer, commanded by Captain Samuel Argall, and arrived in England in June 1616. They helped promote the colony and investment in the Virginia Company increased. During their visit, John Rolfe wrote "A True Relation of the State of Virginia Lefte by Sir Thomas Dale Knight in May Last 1616" The manuscript was published in 1617 and further touted the viability of the colony in Virginia. After nine months in England, the party prepared to return to Virginia but was delayed by bad weather. Finally setting sail in March 1617, the party had to make port in Gravesend because Pocahontas was gravely ill. Pocahontas died and was buried at St George's Church, Gravesend on 21 March 1617. Their small son Thomas was sick as well, it was determined he was too ill to survive a voyage. Pressured to return to Virginia, John Rolfe appointed Sir Lewis Stukley as temporary guardian to his son and returned to Virginia with Uttamatomakkin. Stukley had custody of Thomas Rolfe until his uncle Henry Rolfe could take over his care. It was intended that Thomas would return to Virginia once he recovered his health. Unfortunately, John Rolfe would never see his son again. Thomas did recover his health but remained in England until reaching adulthood.
/ref> They had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1620, who married John Milner of Nansemond, Virginia, and died in 1635. Rolfe died in 1622. He may have died in the Indian massacre of 1622,ref name=Heike97> but the evidence is uncertain. His widow Jane later married English Captain Roger Smith.
The land given by Powhatan (now known as Smith's Fort Plantation, located in Surry County) was willed to Thomas Rolfe, who in 1640 sold at least a portion of it to Thomas Warren.http://www.vahistorical.org/collections-and-resources/garden-club-virginia/plantations/smiths-fort-plantation Smith's Fort Plantation Smith's Fort was a secondary Fort to Jamestown, begun in 1609 by John Smith.
Thomas Rolfe, who had grown up in England, returned to Virginia as an adult and married Jane Poythress. Poythress's English parents were Francis Poythress and Alice Payton."The Descendants of Matoaka: An Unclosed Case", by Elizabeth Vann Moore and Richard Slatten, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, XXIII, no.3, pp.3–16, cited by John Frederick Dorman, Adventurers of Purse and Person, 4th ed., Vol. 3, p.26, fn23-24. Moore and Slatten traced the suggestion that his wife was a Poythress back to a comment by W. G. Stanard in "Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents", Virginia Historical Magazine(I, 1894, 446–447): "His wife is said to have been a Miss Poythress (if so, doubtless a daughter of Francis Poythress." According to Moore and Slatten, Stanard cited as evidence handwritten notes on the flyleaf of a copy of A Complete Collection of All the Laws of Virginia Now in Force Carefully Copied from the Assembled Records (London, 1682, now in the Library of Virginia. Moore and Slatten state: "Interestingly, Thomas Rolfe here is recorded as married to a 'Miss Payers'. We recall that in John Rolfe's will the name of his third wife is spelled Pyers (Peirce) and that it was John who married a "Jane". Here again, a Bolling descendant confused the son with his father. Not recognizing the name 'Payers' as another variant of Peirce, someone searched the records for a name beginning with 'P' and having a 'y' in the first syllable. Francis Poythress lived in adjacent Charles City County and his name ended in s! Stanard wrote, 'His wife is said to have been a Miss Poythress (if so, doubtless a daughter of Francis Poythress).' (VMHB I, 446) Wyndham Robertson, a Bolling descendant, wrote in Pocahontas Alias Matoaka and Her Descendants (Richmond, 1887), 'I adopt "Jane Poythress" (not "Poyers") whom he is stated in the Bolling Memoirs to have married in England.' He added in justification of his charming adoption of an ancestress, '...no such name as "Poyers" is anywhere known ... the family of Poythress was already settled in Virginia.' ... The result has been the acceptance of a non-existent personage, 'Jane Poythress', in the Bibles of Virginia genealogy, as the bona fide ancestress of many illustrious Virginians. Who the wife (or wives) of Thomas Rolfe may have been remaining an unanswered question." Thomas and Jane Rolfe had one child, Jane Rolfe,John Frederick Dorman, Adventurers of Purse and Person, 4th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 23–36. who married Robert Bolling and had a son, John Bolling, in 1676. Jane Rolfe died shortly after giving birth. John Bolling married Mary Kennon, daughter of Richard Kennon and Elizabeth Worsham of Conjurer's Neck. The couple had six surviving children, each of whom married and had surviving children.Henrico County Deeds & Wills 1697–1704, p. 96
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