NELSON, THOMAS (1738-89). An American patriot, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was born at Yorktown, Va., and was the son of William Nelson, Governor of Virginia in 1770-71. He went to England in 1753, was educated at Eton and at Trinity Col lege, Cambridge, and returned to his home at Yorktown in 1761. He was a delegate for several terms to the House of Burgesses, and served in the Provincial Conventions of 1774, 1775. and 1776, introducing in the last the resolution by which Virginia's delegates to Congress were in structed (Slay 15th) to propose a declaration of independence. From August, 1775. until Slay, 1777, when he was forced by ill health to resign. he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1775 he was for a time colonel of the Second Vir ginia Regiment, and from August. 1777. until late
in 1782, he eommanded the Virginia State flirees, rendering valuable service at the siege of York town (1781), where he showed his patriotism by ordering the gunners to fire upon his own man sion. supposed to lie the headquarters of Corn wallis. In 1779 lie again sat for a time in Con gress. and was again forced by ill health to re sign: in 1780 he raised a large sum of money, on his own security, for the State, and paid out of his own pocket the arrearages of two Virginia regiments ordered South; and in the spring of I781 he succeeded Jefferson as Governor of Vir ginia, though he resigned in November. Impov erished by his liberal advances to the State during the war, he passed his last years in very straitened circumstances, and much of his property was sold to pay public debts, for which he was security.