An American politician, if you insist on such a sterile label.
Adam Thoroughgood
!Adam Thoroughgood House The Adam Thoroughgood House, circa 1719. A monument to generational ambition built by Adam’s great-grandson, Argall, and his wife, Susannah. Proof that a name can outlast the man.
Born: (1604-07-15)July 15, 1604 King's Lynn, Norfolk, England
Died: April 27, 1640(1640-04-27) (aged 35) Elizabeth City County, Colony of Virginia
Resting place: Church Point, Lower Norfolk County, Virginia
Spouse: Sarah Offley (Yeardly)
Children: 4
Adam Thoroughgood [Thorowgood] (1604–1640) was a colonist and a man of relentless ambition in the Virginia Colony. His legacy, etched into the landscape, involved settling the Virginian counties of Elizabeth City, Lower Norfolk, and Princess Anne. The last one you might know today as the sprawling independent city of Virginia Beach, a place he wouldn't recognize and would likely find wanting.
Biography
Adam Thoroughgood clawed his way into existence in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, the ninth—yes, ninth—son of the Rector of Grimston, the Reverend William Thorowgood. This position in the family hierarchy tells you everything you need to know about the pressing need for a man to make his own way when inheritance is a distant dream. He was baptized at St. Botolph's Church in Grimston on July 14, 1604, a fact meticulously recorded in the parish register, presumably before he had a choice in the matter.
His formative years were filled not with pastoral English tranquility but with tales of the Americas. These weren't bedtime stories; they were escape routes, whispered by members of Henry Spelman's family, who lived just a mile away in Congham and knew the colony's particular brand of brutal promise. So at seventeen, an age when most are mastering little more than angst, Thoroughgood signed himself into indentured servitude. It was a curious transaction: trading a fixed period of your life for a one-way ticket on a floating plague ship, all under the optimistic, profit-driven gaze of the Virginia Company of London. Around 1622, he landed in a section of the colony south of the Chesapeake Bay, miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. This area had been strategically ignored by earlier settlers of the London Colony, like those at Jamestown in 1607. They had pushed further inland, wisely preferring malarial swamps to the more immediate threat of Spanish cannonballs.
Having dutifully served his indenture, a period one can only imagine was filled with character-building misery, Adam returned to England. This was not a retreat but a recruitment mission. He came back to Virginia with a wife, Sarah Offley, and, more importantly, 105 other souls in tow. This act of mass persuasion earned him a substantial land grant, cementing his transition from servant to master. He swiftly became a leading figure, a big fish in a new and rapidly expanding pond. His political ascent was predictable: elected to the House of Burgesses for the 1629, 1629–1630, and 1632 sessions, appointed to the Governor's Council, and made a Justice of the Court. For good measure, he also became a captain in the local militia and launched one of the first ferry services in the Hampton Roads area. And, of course, he exported tobacco, the cash crop that fueled the entire colonial enterprise on a foundation of nicotine and exploitation.
The Virginia Company of London lost its charter in 1624, and Virginia was absorbed into the Crown as a royal colony. A decade later, in 1634, the colony was carved up into eight shires, an archaic term that stubbornly persists in Virginia's lexicon. These were soon rebranded as counties. Thoroughgood, it seems, was not a man of great imagination but one of deep-seated nostalgia. He is credited with naming New Norfolk County after his birthplace when it was formed from Elizabeth City County in 1637. This act of geographic branding echoed through the centuries. From New Norfolk County later emerged Norfolk County (which existed from 1691 until 1963, when it was reborn as the City of Chesapeake) and, most famously, Lower Norfolk County, which evolved into the modern City of Norfolk.
Despite his far-reaching influence across South Hampton Roads, Thoroughgood chose to build his personal empire along the Lynnhaven River—another nod to his English home. In 1635, his earlier investment in human capital paid off handsomely. He received a land patent for over 5,000 acres (20 km²) as a reward for having persuaded 105 settlers to make the perilous journey to Virginia. Among this imported human cargo was one Augustine Warner, an ancestor of both President George Washington and General Robert E. Lee, proving that the roots of American aristocracy are often tangled in the same patch of dirt.
Thoroughgood seems to have possessed a pragmatic foresight, a rare commodity among his contemporaries. He recognized that Lower Norfolk County—a vast territory encompassing the future cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach—was too unwieldy to be governed from a single location. People, then as now, detest long commutes, especially for matters of God and law. He spearheaded the effort to establish a second parish church, now known as Old Donation Episcopal Church, along with a court and a glebe house. This new center of colonial life was situated at Churches Point on the Lynnhaven River, in the eastern portion of the county that would, in 1691, be carved off to create Princess Anne County. The modern City of Virginia Beach consumed this historic county in 1963.
Then, in 1640, at the age of 36, Adam Thoroughgood’s relentless climb came to an abrupt end. He fell ill and died. His life was a frantic burst of acquisition and influence, cut short before its third act. The Adam Thoroughgood House, though not his original home, now stands as a historic museum, a tidy, curated monument to a complicated and ruthlessly effective man.
Family
The Thoroughgood coat of arms is a testament to a family that had, or at least claimed, status.
Adam Thorowgood married Sarah Offley, a woman from London who would prove to be remarkably resilient. Before his inconveniently timed death, they produced four children:
- Adam, who followed his father’s footsteps into the colonial elite, becoming a Lieutenant Colonel.
- Ann, who married Job Chandler of Maryland, a strategic marital alliance.
- Sarah, who also married into the Maryland gentry, further weaving the family into the regional power structure.
- Elizabeth, who married John Michael, Sr., a member of the Board of Commissioners of Northampton County, Virginia.
His widow, Sarah, did not languish in grief. She was a pragmatist in a world that was unkind to single women with property. She remarried, first to a Captain John Gookin, and after his death, she made her most significant match: Francis Yeardley, the youngest son of the formidable former Governor, Sir George Yeardley. It was a shrewd move, securing her and her children's position at the apex of Virginia society.