One of the wealthiest men in the Tidewater region during his lifetime, he eventually came to own roughly 28,000 acres in four counties along with several slaves, serving as the founder of the Beverley family of Virginia.

In 1666, in what later became Lancaster County, Virginia, he married the widow Mary Keeble, who bore a daughter and from four to six sons (of whom three reached adulthood) before her death in June 1678.

His main income came from exporting his own and his neighbor's tobacco (more than 35,000 lbs in the 1671-1672 season), and importing (and reselling) manufactured goods ranging from soap to wrought iron to cloth and shoes.

The assembly of October 1677 protested the royal commissioners' seizing the documents as a violation of legislative privilege, both to Berkeley's replacement, Lieutenant Governor Herbert Jeffreys and the Privy Council back in England.

[7] However, Beverley overreached in encouraging planters in Gloucester, Middlesex and New Kent Counties in what grew into tobacco cutting riots to protest low prices.

[8] However, Governor Culpeper returned to England and his deputy, Sir Henry Chicheley, died before deciding what to do, so Beverley remained a prisoner until brought before the General Court in the spring of 1684.

Thus on August 1, 1686, King James II again stripped Beverley of all offices, and formally granted the colony' governor the power to appoint the clerk of the House of Burgesses.