John Waller (Virginia politician)

John Waller (January 23, 1673 – August 2, 1754) was a planter, military officer and politician in the Colony of Virginia who was the effective progenitor of one of the First Families of Virginia, and who represented King William County in the House of Burgesses, and helped secure creation of Spotsylvania County, then served as its first clerk for two decades.

[1] Moreover, two descendants named John Waller also would serve in the Virginia House of Delegates: one from Bourbon County before creation of the state of Kentucky, and the other represented York County in the assembly of 1800 while his cousin Benjamin C. Waller represented Williamsburg, which had become the colony's capital city during this man's lifetime, and was split between York and James City Counties, but during the American Revolutionary War, Richmond had become the capital of the new Commonwealth of Virginia.

[citation needed] A cousin of the English Civil War parliamentarians William and Hardress Waller, Waller had a brother called William who became a Church of England clergyman and another brother, Edmund, who was a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.

[2] Whether this John Waller was born in the Virginia Colony or England, shortly after reaching legal age, he bought 1039 acres of land in the Pamunkey Neck of then vast New Kent County, on the south side of the Mattaponi River on May 1, 1696.

Waller was considered a "gentleman" and in 1710 King William voters elected him and Henry Fox as their representatives in the House of Burgesses (a part time position).

[8] His son William Waller would first represent Spotsylvania County in 1742, and would be the first of four men of that name to serve in Virginia's legislature.

[11][12] The story of Kunta Kinte is included in the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley.

[11] Haley's book served, in part, as the premise for the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries Roots, as well as the History Channel remake in 2016.