Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, sometimes hyphenated as Edward-Maria Wingfield, (born 1550 in Stonely, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), England; died in 1631) was a soldier, Member of Parliament, (1593) and English colonist in America. He was the grandson of Richard Wingfield and son of Thomas Maria Wingfield. In what was the first election of any kind in the New World, in 1607, Wingfield became the first president of what is today the Unite...
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Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, sometimes hyphenated as Edward-Maria Wingfield, (born 1550 in Stonely, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), England; died in 1631) was a soldier, Member of Parliament, (1593) and English colonist in America. He was the grandson of Richard Wingfield and son of Thomas Maria Wingfield. In what was the first election of any kind in the New World, in 1607, Wingfield became the first president of what is today the United States of America.
Captain John Smith wrote that Wingfield was one of the early and prime movers and organisers in 1602-1603 in "showing great charge and industry" in getting the Virginia Venture moving: he was one of the four incorporators for the London Virginia Company in the Virginia Charter of 1606 and one of its biggest financial backers. He recruited (with his cousin, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold) about 40 of the 105 would-be colonists, and was the only shareholder to sail. In the first election in the New World, he was elected by his...
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