The First Birth, the First Minister, Etc.
THE first white child born in North America was Virginia, daughter of Ananias and Eleanor Dare, and grand-daughter of Governor John White. She was born on the 18th of August, 1587, in Roanoke, North Carolina. Her parents were of the expedition sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh in that year. There is no record of her history, save that of her birth. The first minister who preached the gospel in North America was Robert Hunt, of the Church of England, an exemplary man, who came out in the same company with Captain John Smith, in the year 1607. He was much esteemed as a man of peace, and was in many ways useful in the colony. There is no record of his death, or his returning to England; he most probably died in Jamestown. He had a good library, which was burnt, with all his other property, in the burning of Jamestown, the next winter after he came out. The first females who came to Virginia proper were Mrs. Forest and her maid, Anne Burras, in the expedition of Newport, 1608. The first marriage in Virginia was in the same year—John Laydon to Anne Burras. The ceremony was probably by the same "good Master Hunt." The first intermarriage between the whites and Indians was John Rolfe to Pocahontas, in April, 1613. Pocahontas was also the first of the Virginia Indians that embraced Christianity and was baptized. The first legislative assembly in Virginia met in July, 1619, at the summons of Governor George Yeardley. One month later, negroes were first brought into the colony by a Dutch man-of-war. The first periodical in North America was the Boston News Letters, which made its appearance in August, 1705. The first in the Old Dominion was The Virginia Gazette, published at Williamsburg, by William Parks, weekly, at fifteen shillings. It appeared in 1736, and was long the only paper published in the colony. Slavery preceded the periodical press by 117 years. The Blue Ridge was first crossed by whites in 1714. The first iron furnace erected in North America was by Governor Spottswood, in 1730, in Spottsylvania County, Virginia.—Independent.