William Byrd III

Colonel William Byrd III (September 6, 1728January 1 or January 2, 1777) was an American planter, politician and military officer who was a member of the House of Burgesses. Career He was son of William Byrd II and Maria Taylor Byrd, and the grandson of William Byrd I. Byrd inherited his family's estate of approximately 179,000 acres of land in Virginia and continued their tradition of serving as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He chose to fight in the French and Indian War rather than spend much time in Richmond. In 1756 he was colonel of the Second Virginia Regiment. William Byrd III had a reputation as a notorious gambler. He initiated what was said to have been the first major horse race in the New World, involving fellow Virginia planters John Tayloe II, Francis Thornton, and Samuel Ogle & Benjamin Tasker Jr. of Maryland. After he squandered the Byrd fortune on building a magnificent mansion at Westover Plantation, gambling, and bad investments, Byrd parceled up much of the land he had inherited from his father and sold it off to raise money to pay his debts. He also sold the enslaved African laborers who had worked on his estate plantation.