Colonel Richard Nicolls (1624-1672), St Andrew’s Church, Ampthill, Beds, UK - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Nicolls was born in 1625 at Great Lodge in Ampthill Park where his father was a keeper.

He commanded a royalist troop of horse during the English Civil War, and on the defeat of the king went into exile. Soon after the Restoration he became Groom of the Chamber to the Duke of York, through whose influence he was appointed in 1664 on a commission with Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright and Samuel Maverick, to conquer New Netherland from the Dutch.

Richard Nicolls was given the task of capturing the Dutch Colonial City of Nieuw Amsterdam, on Long Island, which lay within this swathe of land. He did so in 1664, by threatening to destroy the Dutch fort, on what is now Manhattan Island, with a flotilla of British warships. The Dutch capitulated, and Nicolls upon accepting the surrender of Nieuw Amsterdam, renamed the city New York, after his commanding officer, the Duke of York. He subsequently became the first colonial governor of New York.

Nicolls returned to England in the summer of 1668 and continued in the service of the Duke of York. He was killed by a Dutch cannonball in the naval battle of Southwold Bay (Suffolk) on the 28 May 1672. His monument at Ampthill incorporates the cannon-ball that killed him with a Latin inscription that describes it (loosely) as his "instrument of mortality and immortality".

Source Wikipedia : (visit link)

Description: Captured and named New York. First Governor of New York. Date of birth: 01/01/1624 Date of death: 05/28/1672 Area of notoriety: Military Marker Type: Tomb (above ground) Setting: Indoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 0900-1700 Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   05/21/2011 Norfolk12 visited it