Captain Nicolas Martiau
Captain Nicolas Martiau was a French Walloon (Huguenot). A military engineer, he was sent to Virginia in 1620 to construct fortifications greatly needed for defense against the Indians. He was the father of Elizabeth Martiau, wife of Col. George Reade. His grave marker at Grace Church, Yorktown, Virginia is as follows:
Nicolas Martiau and 16 of his family members
were reinterred from the family burial site
on Buckner Street to this site in 1936.
This marker is dedicated to
Nicolas Martiau, 1591 - 1657,
upon whose land the Town of Yorke
was founded in 1691.
He was the earliest American Ancestor of
General George Washington and
Governor Thomas Nelson
Dedicated May 22, 1993