The discovery of New Brittaine Began August 27 anno Dom 1650 (1651) encyclopediavirginia.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from encyclopediavirginia.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Bland, the fifth of seventeen children of John Bland and Susanna de Deblere Bland, was born probably in London, where he was christened in the parish of Saint Stephen Coleman Street on February 5, 1614. Bland’s father, who died in 1632, was a prominent London merchant and shipowner, an investor in the Virginia Company of London that founded the colony of Virginia, a member of its London council, and one of the proprietors of Martin’s Hundred. When Edward Bland was about twenty years old, he married his cousin Jane Bland. They had one known son. Bland spent much of the decade before 1646 in Spain and the Canary Islands managing parts of the family’s far-flung commercial interests. His elder brother John Bland traveled to Virginia in the mid-1630s to look after and enlarge the family’s landholdings, and his brother Adam Bland probably also visited the colony. By July 7, 1646, Edward Bland had moved to Virginia to take charge of the family’s property there. He acquired sever