Christopher Branch

File:Coat of Arms of Christopher Branch.svg

Branch was born in England around 1600.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AP0RAAAAYAAJ&q=Christopher+Branch+Kent+England&pg=PA471 |title=Makers of America: Biographies of Leading Men of Thought and Action, the Men who Constitute the Bone and Sinew of American Prosperity and Life |last=Wilson |first=Leonard |date=1916 |publisher=B.F. Johnson |pages=471 |language=en}} or 1602. His parents were Lionel Branch and Valentia Sparks of London.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gSsjAQAAIAAJ&q=Christopher+Branch+England+Virginia&pg=PA60 |title=The William and Mary Quarterly |last1=Tyler |first1=Lyon Gardiner |last2=Morton |first2=Richard Lee |date=1917 |publisher=William and Mary College. |pages=61–62 |language=en}} He married Mary Francis Addie, daughter of Francis Addie of Darton, Yorkshire, on 2 September 1619 in St. Peter's, Westcheap, London.

Christopher and Mary Branch sailed to Virginia on the London Merchant in March 1621 and survived the Powhatan attack of 1622 the following year.{{efn|Or they may have sailed in March 1619/1620.}} They were living at Colledg Land in Henrico by February 1623{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tw3gsWD_PD8C&q=Christopher+Branch+England+Virginia&pg=PA37 |title=Colonial Records of Virginia |date=2012-08-28 |publisher=Genealogical Publishing Com |isbn=978-0-8063-0558-5 |pages=37 |language=en}} when their son Thomas was nine months old. According to the William and Mary Quarterly, Thomas was born in 1623. They then had two more sons. William was born in 1625 and Christopher was born about 1627. His granddaughter Mary became the great-grandmother of President Thomas Jefferson,{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VAnGbQZr42EC&q=%2522Mary+Branch%2522+%2522Thomas+Jefferson%2522&pg=PA3 |title=Thomas Jefferson: A Life |last=Randall |first=Willard Sterne |publisher=Harper Collins |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-06-097617-0 |pages=3 |language=en}} making him the three times great-grandfather of the president.{{Cite web |url=http://www.jamestowne.org/1/post/2019/02/379-years-ago-in-1640.html |title=379 Years Ago in 1640... |date=4 February 2019 |publisher=Jamestowne Society |language=en |access-date=27 December 2019|quote=This site is a blog for a historical society, and the submissions are reviewed by the society's historian (i.e., there is an editorial function not commonly found on blogs).}}

Branch acquired land in Henrico (now Chesterfield) County on the south side of the James River and north of Proctors Creek beginning in or before 1634{{efn|In 1634 Branch patented {{convert|100|acre|km2}} of land in Henrico County, Virginia. In September 1636, he patented land in the same section as the first patent, and on 18 December 1636, he patented {{convert|250|acre|km2}} known as Kingsland Plantation.}} and established the Kingsland and Arrahattock Plantations. Branch first settled at Arrahattock on the north side of the James River. The Kingsland Plantation, which grew to 450 acres by 1639, was located across the river from Arrahattock.{{efn|Remnants of Kingsland Plantation can be seen from Kingsland Road, which runs from Highway 5 across old Kingsland plantation to the James.}} Branch operated a tobacco plantation and due to a glut in the market, a limit of the tobacco crop to a percentage per planter was established by the Virginia General Assembly. The remainder of the tobacco crop was to be destroyed.

In 1639 he was a member of the House of Burgesses from Henrico County and was named a tobacco inspector that year. He was a member of the House of Burgesses again in 1641. In 1656, he was the Justice of Henrico County.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3EUvbAES4gC&q=Kingsland+Christopher+Branch&pg=PA570 |title=The Era: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Literature and of General Interest |date=1901 |publisher=Henry T. Coates & Company |pages=570 |language=en}} He died in 1681 while living on the Kingsland Plantation. His wife, Mary, died many years earlier, likely before 1630.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6hYLAwAAQBAJ&q=Kingsland |title=Branchiana |last=Branch |first=C. J. |origyear=1907 |publisher=Franklin Classics Trade Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-5-87514-778-4 |pages=31 |language=en}}

• The article of Jefferson's father Peter Jefferson § Ancestry
• Ancestry of Thomas Jefferson

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Category:People from the Greater Richmond Region

Category:1600s births

Category:1682 deaths

Category:House of Burgesses members

Category:People from Chesterfield County, Virginia

Category:Tobacco plantation owners