“Morgan’s Neck” / Richard Bennett III and Elizabeth Rousby

“Morgan’s Neck” “Morgan’s Neck” (300 acres) was patented by Cecil Calvert on January 26, 1658, to “Henry Morgan, of the Isle of Kent, gentleman,” for transporting into the province Frances Malyn and Francis Ash. The tract descended to his daughter Frances Sayer, in 1674; and to Elizabeth Rousby, his granddaughter, in 1698. Elizabeth Rousby married Richard Bennett, III, grandson of the puritan Governor of Virginia. Their dwelling nearby was excavated in 1973.

Richard Bennett III

1667–1749

his wife

Elizabeth Rousby

1682–1740

Bennett’s will (1749) ordered 250 pounds sterling to be “expended in a decent house to be built over the graveyard and burying place where my dear wife lays interr’d.” The will (1698) of Frances Morgan Sayer ordered “a chapel built of lime and breek” (20 by 30 feet) over the grave of her husband, Col. Peter Sayer, at this site. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Sayer Chapel was most probably incorporated in the Bennett Chapel. Also buried here: Dorothy Blake Carroll (mother of Charles, the Barrister); Thomas Greene (d. 1674).

Marker is on Ice House Point Road 0.2 miles east of Bennett’s Point Road, on the right when traveling east.

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources:

HMDB