Beverly, Robert, 1675-1716
Historian; born in Virginia about 1675. During Sir Edmund Andros's administration he was clerk of the council, an office his father had held before him. He wrote History of the present State of Virginia (4 volumes, published in London in 1705). This included an account of the first settlement of Virginia, and the history of the government until that time. Mr. Beverly is said to have been the first American citizen in whose behalf the habeas corpus act was brought into requisition. He died in 1716.