The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 503
Decimus et Ultimus Barziza
and his origins. His more spectacular antecedents appeared on
the American scene, in colonial tidewater Virginia, in the seven-
teenth century. They were the Philip Ludwells, I, II, and III, who
became the largest landholders in the rich plantation country
along the James River.
Philip Ludwell III," master of Green Spring, Rich Neck, and
Chippokes plantations, near Williamsburg, was the third of his
name to serve as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses,
on the vestry of Bruton Parish, and on the governor's council.
He was the most valued assistant of colonial Governor Robert
Dinwiddie in dealing with the Indians, and was largely respon-
sible for Dinwiddie's appointment of his young friend, George
Washington, as commander of the Virginia militia in 1755.
Philip Ludwell's daughter, Lucy, married John Paradise, noted
English scholar, in 1769.' Paradise, born in Macedonia of an
English father and Greek mother, was the most accomplished
linguist in England in his day, a member of the Royal Society
of London, and an intimate of Boswell, Johnson, and other leading
English men of science and letters. Close friends of the couple in
America included Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, as
well as Lucy's kinsmen, George Washington, Light Horse Harry
Lee, the Byrds, and the Burrs."
After the death of John Paradise in 1795, Lucy Ludwell re-
turned to her ancestral lands, refurbished and reoccupied what is
presently known as the Ludwell-Paradise house in Williamsburg,?
and lived there in considerable splendor until her increasing ec-
5 (1716-1767) .
BA. B. Shepperson, John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell of London and Williams-
burg (Richmond, 1942), 21.
7A marriage contract, made in 1769, between John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell
" is still in possession of their descendants, now residents of Houston, Texas-
in a good state of preservation . ."
History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of the Cities of Houston
and Galveston (Chicago, 1895), 348. J. H. Barziza, Sr., 909 West 23rd, Houston, told
R H. S., in an interview on September 15, 1962, that a trunk full of family
papers, believed to have included this contract, was taken out by a maid and
burned, after the death of Phillip Henry Barziza, son of William Lee Barziza,
sShepperson, John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell of London and Williamsburg, 403,
454-456; Julian P. Boyd (ed.), The Papers of Thomas Jeferson (Princeton, 195o),
IX through XII.
This name was assigned the house by the Williamsburg Restoration, in spite
of the fact that John Paradise never lived in it.
Here’s what’s next.