Philip Ludwell II

Philip Ludwell Jr. (1672 – 1727) was a Virginia planter and politician who served several terms in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and became an important figure in the colony's new capital at Williamsburg as well as with the newly established College of William & Mary. As had his father Philip Ludwell, and as would son Philip Ludwell III, this man served on the Virginia Governor's Council and operated plantations using enslaved labor. Early and family life The younger Philip Ludwell was born in the Virginia colony to the formerly widowed Lucy Higginson Burwell; his immigrant father becoming her second husband. He was a boy when the family fled Bacon's Rebellion, which his father helped crush, but which damaged many of the family landholdings. His maternal grandfather Col. Higginson had earlier led the local James City County militia, and he had a sister, Lucy Ludwell. When their mother died, the elder Ludwell moved his young family to Rich Neck plantation, established by their uncle Thomas Ludwell (who probably died in 1678, with his brother as sole heir). His father remarried in 1680, to the widow of the late Governor William Berkeley, whose nephew had led and then died during the rebellion. The thrice-married Lady Berkeley was the richest person in the colony (with lands in both Virginia and what later became North Carolina) and a formidable force. She died by 1695, without children from any of her husbands, so Philip Ludlow Sr. inherited her vast lands, which he ultimately left to his only son, though he also permanently moved to England by about 1700. In 1697, Philip Ludwell Jr. married Hannah Harrison, daughter of Benjamin Harrison, who like his father was a member of the Virginia Council of state. They had three children, including Philip Ludwell III.