William Beverley

He inherited a large estate after his father's death in 1722, amassing significant landholdings throughout Virginia from which he received revenue from tobacco production and rent from 119 tenants.

His development of the 118,941-acre (481.34 km2) Beverley Manor tract in present-day Augusta County encouraged further settlement west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[2] Although by 1745 Beverley's estate produced 57 hogsheads (about 26,000 kg) of tobacco,[2] the income from his 119 tenants in Caroline, Culpeper, Orange and King and Queen Counties was far more lucrative.

[2][14] After his marriage to Elizabeth Bland about 1725 Beverley lived at Blandfield, a 3,450-acre (14.0 km2) estate along the Rappahannock River in Saint Anne's Parish of Essex County which he named for his wife's family.

[2] On September 6, 1736, Beverley, John and Richard Randolph and John Robinson were deeded a land patent by Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet on behalf of the crown for a 118,941-acre (481.34 km2) tract at the headwaters of the South Fork Shenandoah River in present-day Augusta County.

[24] By 1743 Beverley wished to receive a land grant of 20,000 acres (81 km2) in the Northern Neck Proprietary on the Shenandoah and the South Branch Potomac rivers from Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron,[2] planning to raise horses and cattle and divide the Northern Neck land for tenants.

[2] He wrote to a Barbadian merchant in 1739, "I am very conveniently situated for the sale of Negroes, rum, sugar & Mollasses [sic]".

[2] A partial inventory of his estate in 1745 listed 65 enslaved persons on four plantations, cattle, hogs, sheep and horses.

[2][14] In 1763 Beverley's son, Robert, reported that his father's estate earned "about £1800 Currency, all plantation expenses deducted".

[6][25][31] Beverley took an active role in his children's education, traveling to England in 1750 to enroll his son, his nephew Robert Munford III and another young man at Wakefield Grammar School.

[15] Beverley divided a large part of his fortune among his children and their spouses, bequeathing £500 to his daughter Elizabeth and leaving her husband, James Mills, "Money & slaves" valued at £1,000.

[25] Anna was unmarried at the time of Beverley's death; his will instructed Robert to maintain his sister until her marriage or her twenty-first birthday, when she would receive her inheritance.

[25] Robert inherited the remainder of the plantations and other lands, including the Beverley Manor tract in Augusta County and lots in the town of Staunton.

[38] After his mother's death Robert also inherited Beverley's Essex County properties, including Blandfield (where he built the present Georgian mansion on the site of his father's residence between 1769 and 1773).