 Bermuda's links with the southern states were foundational, with the archipelago having been settled in 1609-1612 by the Virginia Company as an extension of Jamestown, with the Carolinas having been settled from Bermuda in 1670 by settlers under William Sayle, and with most of the 10,000 emigrants from Bermuda between settlement and the gaining of independence by the United States having settled in the South.The ties with Virginia and South Carolina were especially close, and Bermuda's wealthy merchant families had established branches in important Southern Atlantic ports to control trade through those cities and otherwise play important roles (examples including two of the sons of prominent Bermudian Colonel Henry Tucker (1713–1787), St. George Tucker (1752-1827), and Thomas Tudor Tucker (1745-1828)).The second-oldest surviving house in Charleston, Pink House, was built from Bermudian limestone in at some point between 1694 and 1712.