Walter Shelley Explained

Walter Shelley sailed to the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia before 1619.

Walter Shelley was one of the original subscribers to the London Company.^[1] He was a member of the First Legislative Assembly in America and sat for Smith's Hundred when they met at Jamestown on July 30, 1619.^[2] His name appears on a monument to the first House of Burgesses which stands at Jamestown today.

Shelley died of fever in 1619, very shortly after the Assembly began.^[2] It was thought by most scholars that he was related to the Percy Bysshe Shelley family.^[1]

Notes and References

1. Book: 35. 1927. Bruce. Philip Alexander. Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry Into the Origin of the Higher Planter Class, Together with a Description of the Habits, Customs, and Diversions of the People.
2. American Historical Association (1894). Writings on American History, pp. 307-08. Government Printing Office.