In 1606 three ships set sail from England for the New World. Almost a year later they anchored off the coast of what was to become the colony of Virginia. The beach on which the travelers raised a shoreline cross in thanksgiving for a safe voyage was named Cape Henry in honor of the eldest son of the reigning English monarch. Cape Henry is now home to the third oldest lighthouse in America and lovingly cared for by the United States Coast Guard. You can visit this spot in the city of Virginia Beach today.
By 1634 the growing colony of Virginia was divided into eight shires (counties), four of which, Elizabeth, Nansemond, Norfolk and Princess Anne, covered the areas of today’s cities of Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. About two years later, Adam Thoroughgood built his brick home on a site near the Lynnhaven River (in what is now Virginia Beach) and it survives today as the oldest brick home in America.
As trade increased throughout the great harbor and its deep-water tributaries, wharves were built along the riverbanks where ships from England could berth to load and unload cargo. This activity brought an increasing number of colonists to settle the area. Prompted by this expansion, the General Assembly (Virginia’s governing body), then located in the capital at Williamsburg, passed legislation authorizing the purchase of 50 acres for the Town of Norfolk. In 1682 this land was purchased for 10,000 pounds of tobacco and by 1705 Norfolk had built up sufficiently to be recognized as a town. The third Chamber of Commerce in the new world was founded here in 1801.
Traders opened up the route to the Carolinas through what became Chesapeake. Villages like Deep Creek sprang up and steamers began using the Dismal Swamp Canal. By 1859 the Albemarle and Chesapeake canal was established. Today it is know as the Intercoastal Waterway. The Dismal Swamp Canal and the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal form alternate routes along the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway between the Chesapeake Bay and Albemarle Sound
In what’s now known as Virginia Beach, the pirate Blackbeard took shelter around Lake Joyce. An interesting lady named Grace Sherwood was suspected of witchcraft and duly dunked in a pond, she survived the dunking. Today, a major thoroughfare in Virginia Beach, known as Witchduck Road, remains a reminder of the event.
In 1767 Gosport Shipyard was founded. Today known as the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, though located in Portsmouth, VA, it is the largest of its kind in the world, and the oldest, continuously operating shipyard in the country. Portsmouth is world renown as a major ship repair center.
The Hampton Roads area saw its share of Revolutionary War action. The heated 1775 Battle of Great Bridge resulted in a victory for the Americans. The battle name referenced the “great” bridge in the heart of what is now Chesapeake. Mule teams routinely carried cattle, hogs and tobacco to and from the markets over this bridge that now spans the Intercoastal Waterway.
The British shelled and burned Norfolk in 1776. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, one of the few surviving buildings, carries to this day, a British cannonball embedded in an exterior southeastern wall.
By the late 1800’s the pleasures and attractions of the oceanfront had been discovered. In 1883 the Vanderbilt family built the first railroad line to bring tourists to what is now Virginia Beach. In 1888, the first wooden boardwalk was constructed on what was to become one of the most popular beachfronts on the east coast.
The two world wars proved to be booms, not only to the shipyards, but also to the region as a whole as jobseekers and military flocked to and through Hampton Roads. The U.S. Naval Base was established in Norfolk in 1917. The Oceana and Dam Neck naval facilities were established in World War II.
Chesapeake and Virginia Beach became cities in 1963 drawing landmass from the preexisting counties, and in 1974 the city of Suffolk grew by including Holland, Whaleyville and the County of Nansemond.
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