SIR WILLIAM GOOCH.
William Gooch was born at Yarmouth, England, October 21, 1681.
He was an officer of superior military abilities, and had served under
Marlborough, and in the Revolution of 1715. He arrived in Virginia
October 13, 1727, relieving President Robert Carter in the government.
The council, without authority, allowing Gooch three hundred
pounds out of the quit-rents in augmentation of his salary, he in
return resigned, in a great measure, the helm of government to
them, and so insinuating was he in his diplomacy and so facile in accommodating
himself doubly to the home authorities and to the people of
Virginia that he greatly endeared himself to them, and he is said to
have been the only Colonial Governor in America against whom there
was never any complaint, either from inhabitant or merchant abroad.
Owing partly to his address, and partly to a well-established revenue and
the enforcement of a rigid economy, the Colony enjoyed prosperous
repose during his long administration. During the year 1728, the boundary
line between Virginia and North Carolina was run by Colonel
William Byrd and Messrs. Fitzwilliam and Dandridge, Commissioners
in behalf of Virginia, and others on the part of North Carolina, and the
transaction is most entertainingly detailed in the "Westover MSS."
of Colonel Byrd. In 1740, troops for the first time were transported
from the Colonies to co-operate with the forces of the mother country in
offensive war. An attack upon Carthagena being determined on, Gooch
raised four hundred men as the quota of Virginia, and the Assembly
voted £5,000 for their support. Major-General Alexander Spotswood,
who had been appointed to the command of the four battalions
raised in the Colonies, dying June 7, 1740, at Annapolis, on the eve of
embarkation, Governor Gooch assumed the command of the expedition.
During his absence the government of Virginia devolved on Commissary
James Blair, President of the Council. During the administration
of Gooch, the settlement of the fertile valley of Virginia was effected,
first in 1734, twelve miles from the present town of Woodstock. In
May, 1746, the Assembly appropriated £4,000 to the raising of Virginia's
quota of troops for the invasion of Canada. They sailed from
Hampton in June; the expedition, however, proved abortive. Governor
Gooch, who had been appointed Commander, but declined, was
created a Baronet during the year, and in 1747 was made a Major General.
He returned to England in 1749, leaving John Robinson, President
of the Council, as the Acting Governor of the Colony. Sir William
Gooch died December 17, 1751. The press in 1878 chronicled the unhappy
estrangement of his descendant, Sir Thomas Gooch, the eighth
baronet, from his childless wife, Lady Anne (Sutherland), because of an
attempt to deceive him with a spurious heir. Broken in spirit and
health, the sorrowful wife, in her death the following year, expiated her
offense.
It may be of interest to note that another of the lineage of Governor
Gooch, and bearing the same Christian name, preceded him as a resident
of the Colony. At "Temple Farm," a seat of Governor Spotswood,
near Yorktown, Va., within the structure known as the "Temple" is the
tomb of Major William Gooch (who died October 29, 1655, aged twentynine),
bearing the arms of Gooch of Norfolk (of which family was the
Governor) as follows: Paly of right ar. and sa. a chev. of the first betw.
three dogs of the second spotted of the field. Crest—A greyhound
passant ar. spotted sa. and collared of the last. This William Gooch
was a Burgess from York County, in 1654, and it is claimed there are
those of the name, of his lineage in Virginia now.
