Samuel Jordan

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For the founder of The American College of Tehran, see Samuel M. Jordan.

Samuel Jordan (1578 – 1623), was an early Jamestown settler in the Virginia Colony and one of the first American colonial legislators, born in Wiltshire, England, son of Robert Jordan. The Jordans, or Jourdains, were of French descent, Huguenots associated with the protestant reformation.

Jordan traveled to the New World as part of the "Third Supply" of the Virginia Company, to the first English colony at Jamestown. He was a passenger on the Sea Venture, the flagship of the fleet which became shipwrecked on Bermuda, (perhaps the first example of the mythical Bermuda Triangle phenomenon).

Jordan kept a log of events as Governor Thomas Gates, Admiral George Somers, the other passengers and himself built two new ships (the Patience and the Diligence) from parts of the wrecked Sea Venture, and eight months late, finally arrived at Jamestown, only to discover the survivors of the Starving Time at the Colony. As they were about to abandon the colony, another supply mission commanded by Lord Delaware arrived, and together, these three groups became the most permanent and successful part of the early colony.

Samuel Jordan's account of the seagoing adventure may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

Jordan was a widower when he arrived in Jamestown, having three sons by his first marriage. The sons later followed him to the Americas. He married a local widow, Cecily Reynolds Bailey, and in 1620, settled in a place which became his plantation, known as Jordan's Journey. He built a home called Beggar's Bush (after the Fletcher play), and was elected to the first legislative assembly in America, the House of Burgesses in Jamestown.

In 1622, the local Indian tribes organized a surprise attack on the English colonists. During what became known as the Indian Massacre of 1622, many men, women, and children were killed in a coordinated series of attacks led by Chief Opechancanough of the Powhatan Confederacy. After the attack, Samuel gathered together a few of the survivors at Beggar's Bush. At the time of a survey in 1623, Beggar's Bush housed 42 people, including many neighboring families who had gone there for protection. In early 1623 Samuel was still established in his plantation. Samuel died at Jordan's Journey sometime before April, 1623, and an inventory of his estate included his widow, Cicely and her two young daughters, two plantations, five houses, two boats, ten servants, and several coats of chainmail.

Samuel's three adult sons from his first marriage, Thomas, Robert, and Samuel, are believed to have come to Virginia in the 1620s. Robert reportedly died on March 22, 1622, during the Indian massacre. He was killed at Berkley's Hundred, some five miles up the river from Jordan's Journey, when he went there to warn the inhabitants there of the planned Indian attack. Thomas settled in Isle of Wight County. The other son, Samuel, is believed to have come to Virginia as a young man, returned to England to study at Oxford, and then came back to the Virginia after completing his studies at All Souls College, Oxford. Samuel is believed to have first settled in Surry County. Later he moved on west to Lunenburg County, and his trail was lost.

Samuel Jordan is known to Virginians as an Ancient Planter, being from the first colony, and his name is pronounced by locals now as "Jer'-den".