- At the age of 18 he married Matilda Burford, daughter of Daniel Burford, sheriff of Amherst County, but she died a year later during the birth of their daughter, Mourning Floyd.[2] In 1770, at the age of 20, Floyd moved to Botetourt County, Virginia to seek employment.[2] He worked as a teacher while living in the home of Col. William Preston.[3] Preston, a prominent frontier Virginian, was the surveyor for the western part of Virginia then known as Fincastle County, Virginia, which stretched as far as the Mississippi River.
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- Revolutionary War Militia Officer, Frontiersman. Early figure in establishing Kentucky settlements; In July 1776 helped rescue three young girls kidnapped by Indians from Boonesborough, Virginia (later Kentucky) in group led by Daniel Boone. Commanded militia regiment for George Rogers Clark against British allied Indians in Ohio in the summer of 1780. Killed in ambush by Indians. Son John Floyd and grandson John both became governors of Virginia.
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Floyd was born in 1750 in Amherst County, Virginia, to William and Abadiah (Davis) Floyd,[2] descendants of Welsh immigrants.[3] His mother was also of partial American Indian ancestry, and according to family tradition was a descendant of the Powhatan chieftain Opchanacanough.[4] Another family tradition maintains that her brother was Evan Davis, the grandfather of Jefferson Davis.[3] In Virginia the Floyd family operated a farm and made a decent living there, but the younger Floyd knew opportunity to do better was in the west.
At the age of 18 he married Matilda Burford, daughter of Daniel Burford, sheriff of Amherst County, but she died a year later during the birth of their daughter, Mourning Floyd.[2] In 1770, at the age of 20, Floyd moved to Botetourt County, Virginia to seek employment.[2] He worked as a teacher while living in the home of Col. William Preston.[3] Preston, a prominent frontier Virginian, was the surveyor for the western part of Virginia then known as Fincastle County, Virginia, which stretched as far as the Mississippi River.[2][4]
Floyd became a deputy surveyor under Preston, doing land survey jobs from time to time. When he was not working with Preston, he rode as a deputy sheriff with Daniel Trigg, working under Sheriff Col. William Christian of Botetourt County.[4] Preston started receiving applications for land claims to be located and surveyed from veterans of the French and Indian War. In 1774 Floyd was selected to lead a group of surveyors into what is now West Virginia and Kentucky.
In 1783 Virginia organized the government of Kentucky and Floyd was appointed to be one of the first two judges of Kentucky.[2][15] Later in the year in March he would write Preston informing him of his brother in law Billy Buchanan being killed by Indians.[3] Also in the letter Floyd wrote that he dreamed that his fate might become the same. This proved true as a month later Floyd was wounded on April 8, 1783 by Indians while on his way to Bullitt's Lick while wearing the scarlet coat he had brought from Paris.[9] He died of his injuries on April 10, 1783.[2] His widow Jane preserved the scarlet coat until 1812 when the coat was buried with her, as she had requested.[9] Floyd is buried near Floyd's Station at Breckinridge Cemetery
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1750 - 1783 (33 years)
