Temperance Flowerdew

Temperance probably endured harsh conditions at Jamestown in the winter of 1609 and 1610 in what has come to be called "The Starving Time." Conditions bettered in mid 1610 when Sir Thomas Gates and George Yeardley arrived after being waylaid in Bermuda and having to build new ships to make it to Jamestown. George Yeardley served as captain of the guard for Gates and in 1611 he was promoted to a lieutenant. In 1613 Sir Thomas Dale founded the Bermuda Hundred Plantation and hired George as his second in command. Dale served as acting governor during another absence by Thomas West but left the colony on April 19th, 1616 to escort James Rolfe and Pocahontas to London. George Yeardley was named Deputy Governor until the arrival of Samuel Argall on May 15th, 1617.

George returned to England late in 1617, Temperance may have traveled with him or may have returned to London at an earlier point. They were married in London on October 18th, 1618. One month later The Virginia Company appointed George to serve as Governor of Virginia. On November 24th George was knighted by King James I during an audience at Newmarket in Surry, England.

George and Temperance sailed for Virginia on January 19th, 1619 and arrived on April 18th. George assumed the role of Governor and established the Flowerdew Hundred Plantation on 1,000 acres on the south side of the James River. Either the land was named for his Temperance, or it was already in use by the Flowerdew family before being patented. Later that summer George presided over the meeting of representative government in America when he convened the General Assembly at Jamestown. Ensign Edmund Rossingham attended the meeting as a representative from Flowerdew Hundred Plantation. He was Temperance's nephew and the son of her sister Mary who had married Dionysis Rossingham. George served as Governor until 1621.

In 1621 George paid 120 pounds to have a windmill built at Flowerdew Hundred, the first in North America. Also in 1621 a Native American leader called Laughing King or Esmy Shichans gave George 3,000 to 4,000 acres of land on Virginina's Eastern Shore. On March 10th, 1622 Temperance witnesses the will of John Rolfe. On March 22nd, 1622 Indians from the Tsenacomoco tribe attacked white settlements up and down the James River and killed as many as a third of the colonists living in Virginia. Flowerdew Hundred saw six people murdered. George led marches against the Indians in 1622 and 1623. In 1624 George was again appointed as interim governor.

In a muster of the Colony in February 1624 George, Temperance and three children were recorded living in Jamestown along with eight white servants and two black slaves. Around that time George sold Flowerdew Hundred and patented 100 acres, including 7.5 acres in Jamestown City. In January of the following year George listed 39 laborers, eight of whom were black slaves. After the dissolution of the Virginia Company James and Temperance traveled to London in the summer and fall of 1625 and George delivered a letter to the Privy Council on the conditions in Virginia.

The following spring George was again appointed by the King of England to be Governor of Virginia. George and his family departed England on April 19th, 1626 to sail back to Jamestown. In 1627 George founded another 1,000 acre plantation on Mulbery Island, 10 miles down river from Jamestown on the north side of the James. He names the new plantation Stanley Hundred in honor of Temperance's mother, Martha Stanley.

George did not complete his third term as governor. He took ill and wrote a will on October 12th, 1627. He ordered his land except the Stanley Plantation and land at Jamestown should go to Argoll and the other property be sold and added to the value of his estate and then the estate to be divided into three equal parts with one part going to Temperance, another part to their son Argoll and the final part to be divided between Elizabeth and Francis. George Yeardley died at Jamestown on November 10th, 1627 and was buried at the church three days later.

Temperance stayed in Jamestown and married the new governor, Francis West, in March of 1628. She soon took ill as well and died intestate at Jamestown in December of 1628. The three children were sent back to London and raised by George's brother, Ralph Yeardley. Argoll and Francis both returned to the colony, but only Argoll had children. Nothing more is known about Elizabeth.