The area around Suffolk, Virginia, which is now an independent city in the Hampton Roads region in the southeastern part of the state, was originally inhabited by Native Americans. At the time of European contact, the Nansemond people lived along the river later known by the same name. The area was first explored by Jamestown colonists led by explorer John Smith soon after the settlements founding in 1607, seeking means to survive the inhospitable environment at Jamestown Island.
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By at least 1584, the Nansemond tribe originally lived in four villages along the Nansemond River, centered near Chuckatuck (now part of the city of Suffolk). Their head chief lived near Dumpling Island where the tribe’s temples and sacred items were located. At that time the tribe had a population of 1,200 persons with 300 bowmen. [1] [2]
In 1608, the explorer John Smith and other colonists from Jamestown began to explore the Nansemond River, following the river's oyster beds; upon discovering a Nansemond settlement, Smith and his party raided it, worsening tensions between the two groups. The next year, a Nansemond raiding party routed another expeditionary party led by Smith, who ransacked the tribe's temple in revenge. [3] [1] [2] Despite such tensions, the fledgling colony soon began to expand, and soon settlers gained control of the area as they drove out the Nansemond— the tribe lost their last known reservation lands in 1792. [1]
The area in 1634 was originally a part of Elizabeth River Shire and then, in 1637, it became a part of Upper Norfolk County, which eventually in 1646 became Nansemond County. In the 1720s, John Constant settled along the Nansemond river (in what is now Suffolk) and built a home, wharf, and warehouse. Thus the site became known as "Constant's Warehouse." [4] Under the Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730, one of the 40 tobacco inspection warehouses was chartered : " At the widow Constance's[sic], at Sleepy-Hole Point, in Nansemond County, under one inspection." [5]
In 1742, the House of Burgesses, authorized a new town at Constant's Wharf, and named it "Suffolk" [6] after Royal Governor Sir William Gooch's home county of Suffolk in East Anglia. [3] [7]
In 1750, the county seat of Nansemond County was moved from Jarnigan's or Cohoon's Bridge to Suffolk. Eventually, enslaved Africans were imported to work on ships and as artisans in the town, but especially as laborers on tobacco plantations. They were integral to the success of the area in exporting its tobacco crop. In some cases, slaves escaped to the nearby Great Dismal Swamp and joined the Great Dismal Swamp maroons.
During the American Revolutionary War, the town was burned by the British in 1779. It was totally destroyed after thousands of barrels of turpentine and pitch caught fire in warehouses along the river. [3]
Suffolk became an incorporated town in Nansemond County in 1808. As part of Virginia, it sided with the Confederacy in the American Civil War. From May 12, 1862, to July 3, 1863, the town was occupied by 25,000 Union troops under Major General John J. Peck. Peck made his headquarters in the Greek revival house now called "Riddick's Folly". Graffiti from the occupying soldiers and prisoners can still be seen on the walls. [3] [8] [9]
During this period, Confederate General James Longstreet besieged the town with 20,000 men between April 11 and May 4, 1863 while gathering supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia. During the siege, General George Pickett would slip away to meet with his sweetheart and soon-to-be wife LaSalle (Sallie) Ann Corbell of Nansemond County. [10] Longstreet was ordered to disengage by General Robert E. Lee and rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia at Fredericksburg. [9] Two months later on July 3, the Union forces abandoned the town for strategic reasons, as decided by General John Adams Dix. [11]
Confederate cavalry general Laurence S. Baker is buried in the town's Cedar Hill Cemetery. [12]
Suffolk became a city independent from the surrounding county in 1910. At a practical level, the two remained closely linked, and the county seat remained at Suffolk after the city became politically independent. Thus it remained until 1972 when the county was converted to city status to become the short-lived lost city the City of Nansemond. On January 1, 1974, the City of Nansemond and the City of Suffolk united to become the present City of Suffolk, consolidating with the outlying incorporated towns of Holland and Whaleyville. [13] The end result was a new municipality encompassing a total of 430 square miles (1,100 km2), making it the largest city in land area in Virginia [3] and the 16th largest in the country.[ citation needed ]
Suffolk celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2008. It is (as of 2008 [update] ), the fastest-growing city in Virginia. [3]
In 1912, Italian immigrant Amedeo Obici came from Pennsylvania and opened facilities of the Planters Nut and Chocolate Company in Suffolk. He built on the widespread cultivation of peanuts in the area. By 1941, Suffolk had been declared "The Peanut Capital of the World". [3] The city also became home to Planters' Mr. Peanut, a world-famous advertising icon (voted the country's third-most popular in 2004 [3] ). A statue of Mr. Peanut is prominently displayed in downtown Suffolk. The company, now owned by Kraft Foods, is one of Suffolk's ten largest employers. [14]
In 1924 Obici and his wife Louise settled at Bay Point Farm in Chuckatuck on a bluff overlooking the Nansemond River. Their home, which has been designated a Virginia Historic Landmark, now belongs to the City of Suffolk. In memory of his wife, Obici donated funds for the construction of what became the Louise Obici Memorial Hospital in Suffolk, which opened in 1951. In 2002, a newer facility, the Obici Sentara Hospital, opened as its successor.
For many years, the call letters of local AM radio station WLPM stood for World's Largest Peanut Market.[ citation needed ] Today, Suffolk remains a major peanut processing center.
As a gateway to Norfolk and Portsmouth, Suffolk became a major rail interchange point, served at one time or another by many of Virginia's railroads. Before the American Civil War, both the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad and the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad were built through Suffolk, early predecessors of 21st century Class 1 railroads operated by CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern respectively. The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, the Atlantic and Danville Railroad, and the Virginian Railway also built through Suffolk on their way to the harbor at Hampton Roads.
On April 28, 2008, a massive tornado moved through portions of Suffolk. The tornado is considered one of the strongest tornadoes to strike the state of Virginia in recent history and the worst to strike Hampton Roads since a tornado spawned by the remnants of Tropical Storm Dennis nine years before. The 2008 tornado was rated EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
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Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point near where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.
The Middle Peninsula is the second of three large peninsulas on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. To the north the Rappahannock River separates it from the Northern Neck peninsula. To the south the York River separates it from the Virginia Peninsula. It encompasses six Virginia counties: Essex, Gloucester, King and Queen, King William, Mathews, and Middlesex. Developed for tobacco plantations in the colonial era, in the 21st century the Middle Peninsula is known for its quiet rural life, vegetable truck-farming, and fishing industry. As of the 2020 census, the Middle Peninsula was home to 92,886 people.
Suffolk is an independent city in Virginia, United States. As of 2020, the population was 94,324. It is the 10th-most populous city in Virginia, the largest city in Virginia by boundary land area as well as the 14th-largest in the country. Suffolk is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. This also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, and smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads. With miles of waterfront property on the Nansemond and James rivers, present-day Suffolk was formed in 1974 after consolidating with Nansemond County and the towns of Holland and Whaleyville. The current mayor is Mike Duman.
Mills Edwin Godwin Jr. was an American politician who was the 60th and 62nd governor of Virginia for two non-consecutive terms, from 1966 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1978.
USS Alert was a 90 long tons (91 t) steamship named A. C. Powell purchased by the Union Navy during the first year of the American Civil War.
South Hampton Roads is a region located in the extreme southeastern portion of Virginia's Tidewater region in the United States with a total population of 1,191,937. It is part of the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA, which itself has a population of 1,724,876.
The James River Bridge (JRB) is a four-lane divided highway lift bridge across the James River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Owned and operated by the Virginia Department of Transportation, it carries U.S. Route 17 (US 17), US 258, and State Route 32 across the river near its mouth at Hampton Roads. The bridge connects Newport News on the Virginia Peninsula with Isle of Wight County in the South Hampton Roads region, and is the easternmost such crossing without a tunnel component.
Nansemond is an extinct jurisdiction that was located south of the James River in Virginia Colony and in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States, from 1646 until 1974. It was known as Nansemond County until 1972. From 1972 to 1974, a period of eighteen months, it was the independent city of Nansemond. It is now part of the independent city of Suffolk.
Amedeo Obici was an Italian-born American businessman and philanthropist who founded Planters.
State Route 32 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. The state highway runs 38.89 miles (62.59 km) from the North Carolina state line in Suffolk north to U.S. Route 17, US 258, and SR 143 in Newport News. The southernmost part of SR 32 connects Suffolk with the Albemarle Region of North Carolina via North Carolina Highway 32. The remainder of SR 32 runs concurrently with at least one other state or U.S. Highway between Suffolk and Newport News, including US 13, SR 10, US 258, and US 17. The last two highways run together with SR 32 on the James River Bridge.
The Bay Rivers District is an athletic district of the Virginia High School League which includes schools in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. The district was formed in 1990 with the consolidation of schools from the York River District and Peanut District schools. The schools in the Bay Rivers District compete in 2A, 3A, and 4A. Since 2013, the district is only used for the regular season.
The Nansemond are the Indigenous people of the Nansemond River, a 20-mile-long tributary of the James River in Virginia. Nansemond people lived in settlements on both sides of the Nansemond River where they fished, harvested oysters, hunted, and farmed in fertile soil. Today, Nansemond people belong to the federally recognized Nansemond Indian Nation.
Holland, Virginia was an incorporated town in the southwestern section of Nansemond County, Virginia. Since 1974, it has been a community in the independent city of Suffolk, Virginia following a political consolidation which formed Virginia's largest city in geographic area.
Driver is a neighborhood in the independent city of Suffolk, Virginia, United States. It is located at the junction of State Route 337, State Route 125, and State Route 627.
The history of Virginia Beach, Virginia, goes back to the Native Americans who lived in the area for thousands of years before the English colonists landed at Cape Henry in April 1607 and established their first permanent settlement at Jamestown a few weeks later. The Colonial Virginia period extended until 1776 and the American Revolution, and the area has been part of the Commonwealth of Virginia ever since.
Whaleyville is a neighborhood of Suffolk, Virginia, United States. It was formerly an incorporated town located in southern Nansemond County, Virginia. Whaleyville is located midway between the former county seat at downtown Suffolk and the North Carolina border along U.S. Route 13.
The history of Norfolk, Virginia as a modern settlement begins in 1636. The city was named after the English county of Norfolk and was formally incorporated in 1736. The city was burned by orders of the outgoing Virginia governor Lord Dunmore in 1776 during the second year of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), although it was soon rebuilt.
The history of Hampton Roads dates to 1607, when Jamestown was founded. Two wars have taken place in addition to many other historical events.
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