Charles Willing Byrd

Biography

Charles Willing Byrd was a planter born in 1770 in Virginia, representing the agricultural gentry of the early American South. His life coincided with the nation's founding and the early decades of the republic, during which the planter class wielded considerable economic and political influence.

Byrd's estate at Sinking Spring reflected the agricultural wealth of his era. He died in 1828, having lived through the transformation of American society from colonial dependence to independent nationhood and westward expansion.