Maycock Plantation, also known as Maycock's Plantation and Maycox Plantation, among the first plantations on the south side of the James River in Prince George County, Virginia, was settled by Samuel Maycock about 1618 or 1619, during the early Colonial period of Virginia. [1] The former plantation is now part of the James River National Wildlife Refuge, [2] and is located off Flowerdew Hundred Road And James River Drive, Prince George, Virginia. [3]
Before Jamestown was colonized in 1607, Weyanoke people and earlier Native Americans lived in the area from about 8,000 B.C. in what is now the James River National Wildlife Refuge. Seven archaeological sites show habitation from the Early Archaic through the Late Woodland periods. Artifacts include stone tools, projectile points, and ceramics. There is evidence of an agricultural culture. [2] Their land was usurped by the English colonists. After decades of conflicts, known as the Anglo-Powhatan Wars, the Weyanoke people left the area in 1644. [2] A ferry was established by 1705 at Maycock's Point to cross the James River. Soon after, the local economy was based upon corn and tobacco crops. [2] There had been a mill on Powell's Creek, which was damaged during the Civil War, after which it was restored and operated for a few decades. By the early 1900s, much of what is now the refuge was wooded. [2]
Samuel Maycock, born a gentleman, was a scholar of the University of Cambridge in England. In the Colony of Virginia, he sat on the Virginia Governor's Council. [1] [4] Maycock patented 1,700 acres for his plantation in 1618. He was working on the land on March 22, 1622, with Edward Lister [1] [2] [a] and another man when they were massacred by Weyanoke people during the Indian massacre of 1622. [1]
At the time, Maycock had an infant child named Sarah who survived the attack. There was not much work done on the plantation for several decades due to the threat of attack by Native Americans. In 1638, Sarah Maycock married George Pace, the son of Richard Pace. George, or his son Richard Pace II, is believed to have built the 17th-century house. [1]
In 1970, an archaeological team led by Dr. Ben McCary and Dr. Norman Barka from College of William & Mary unearthed a foundation of a house built between 1640 and 1660. It is believed to have been a two-story house about 60 by 20 feet (18.3 by 6.1 m), with three rooms on each floor. Situated on a bluff, it was built upon a former Native American site of the Weyanoke people that overlooked the James River. [1] It may have been destroyed in the Third Anglo-Powhatan War of 1644 or at another time by other means. [1] Richard Pace lived at Maycock Plantation near Powells Creek in 1659. [b]
George Pace sold 800 to 900 acres in 1650 to Thomas Drew. Roger Drayton sold 250 acres to John Hamlin in 1696, who sold the land to Thomas Ravenscroft in 1723. [4]
In 1772, acreage of various sizes on a seat called Maycox was put up for sale by George M. Meade and John Ravenscroft. The land was good for wheat and Indian corn. [5]
David Meade bought the plantation in 1774. [6] The plantation's "long, narrow terraced raised walks that offered excellent viewing platforms, formed circulation routes through the landscape, and made ideal venues for social promenade," built according to François-Jean de Chastellux in residential settings, such as Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Maycock Plantation, in 18th-century America. [7]
David Meade Jr. (1744–1830) lived there with his wife Sarah Waters Meade, the daughter of Sarah (née Prentis, 1749–1829) and William Waters, [8] sometime after 1774, [6] where he "dabbled in English-style garden design." [9] Educated in England, he helped finance that American Revolution. [9] Charles Cornwallis, commander of the British forces, crossed the James River in May 1781 and in August Anthony Wayne crossed the river near or at the plantation of 600 acres. [6] Meade lived there until 1796, [8] when he sold the plantation. [9]
In 1800, Carter Bassett Harrison settled in Prince George County, Virginia at Maycock Plantation (Maycox Plantation), along the James River. [10] William Allen Harrison lived at Maycox Plantation. He died in 1824 and Carter Bassett Harrison inherited his father's plantation and 25 enslaved people according to William Allen Harrison's will dated May 22 of that year. [11]
In 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had a pontoon bridge built nearby to cross the river en route to the Siege of Petersburg. [6]
The historic marker for Maycock's Plantation states,
Samuel Maycock, a member of the governor's Council who served in Virginia's first legislative assembly in 1619, patented land originally inhabited by Virginia Indians about four miles north on the James River. The area became a tobacco plantation that continued to operate after Maycock was killed in 1622 during a surprise attack at the outset of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War. The labor of enslaved Africans and African Americans sustained the plantation under later owners. In 1781, during the Revolutionary War, British and American armies likely crossed the river at the property. In the summer of 1862, several enslaved families escaped to Union lines. Union forces soon burned the main house. [3]
Charles City County is a county located in the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated southeast of Richmond and west of Jamestown. It is bounded on the south by the James River and on the east by the Chickahominy River.
The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776.
John Rolfe was an English explorer, farmer and merchant. He is best known for being the husband of Pocahontas and the first settler in the colony of Virginia to successfully cultivate a tobacco crop for export.
Sir George Yeardley was a planter and colonial governor of the colony of Virginia. He was also among the first slaveowners in Colonial America. A survivor of the Virginia Company of London's ill-fated 1609 Third Supply Mission, whose flagship, the Sea Venture, was shipwrecked on Bermuda for ten months, he is best remembered for presiding over the initial session of the first representative legislative body in Virginia in 1619. With representatives from throughout the settled portion of the colony the group became known as the House of Burgesses and continued to meet, becoming the Virginia General Assembly.
Carter Bassett Harrison was a politician from the U.S. state of Virginia.
Warrosquoake Shire was officially formed in 1634 in the Virginia colony, but had already been known as "Warascoyack County" before this. It was named for an Algonquian-speaking tribe that was part of the Powhatan Confederacy. The county was renamed Isle of Wight County in 1637, after an island in the English Channel.
The Indian massacre of 1622 took place in the English colony of Virginia on March 22, 1621/22 (O.S./N.S.). English explorer John Smith, though he was not an eyewitness, wrote in his History of Virginia that warriors of the Powhatan "came unarmed into our houses with deer, turkeys, fish, fruits, and other provisions to sell us"; they then grabbed any tools or weapons available and killed all English settlers they found, including men, women, and children of all ages. Opechancanough, chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, led a coordinated series of surprise attacks that ended up killing a total of 347 people — a quarter of the immigrant population of the Colony of Virginia.
The Anglo–Powhatan Wars were three wars fought between settlers of the Colony of Virginia and the Powhatan People of Tsenacommacah in the early 17th century. The first war started in 1609 and ended in a peace settlement in 1614. The second war lasted from 1622 to 1632. The third war lasted from 1644 until 1646 and ended when Opechancanough was captured and killed. That war resulted in a defined boundary between the Indians and colonial lands that could only be crossed for official business with a special pass. This situation lasted until 1677 and the Treaty of Middle Plantation which established Indian reservations following Bacon's Rebellion.
Jordan Point is a small unincorporated community on the south bank of the James River in the northern portion of Prince George County, Virginia, United States. It is about 20 miles from Richmond and 30 miles upstream from Jamestown on the James River. It was the location of extensive archeological research between 1987 and 1993. This research provided substantial information about human existence in the area from the prehistoric to the late colonial eras. In particular, the research extensively studied the Jordan's Journey settlement that existed between 1620 and 1640 during early years of the Virginia colony.
Berkeley Hundred was a Virginia Colony, founded in 1619, which comprised about eight thousand acres (32 km2) on the north bank of the James River. It was near Herring Creek in an area which is now known as Charles City County, Virginia. It was the site of an early documented Thanksgiving when the settlers landed in what later was the United States. In 1622, following the Indian massacre of 1622, the colony was for a time abandoned. In the mid 18th century, it became known as Berkeley Plantation, the traditional home of the Harrison family of Virginia. In 1862, amid fighting in the Civil War, the area was the scene of the creation and first bugle rendition of present-day "Taps".
Captain Samuel Mathews was a Virginia planter, political figure, and the father of Governor Samuel Mathews. Also known as Colonel Mathews, the elder Samuel became one of the most prominent men in the colony.
Smith's Hundred or Smythe's Hundred was a colonial English settlement in the Province of Virginia, in the modern United States of America. It was one of the original James River plantations named after the treasurer of the Virginia Company, Sir Thomas Smythe. It was settled by the English in 1617 and after 1620, was known as Southampton Hundred in honor of the Earl of Southampton. The site was originally home to a village of the Paspahegh Indians. They were located along the north bank of James River.
Jamestown, also Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as the capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg. This article covers the history of the fort and town at Jamestown proper, as well as colony-wide trends resulting from and affecting the town during the time period in which it was the colonial capital of Virginia.
Richard Pace was an early settler and ancient planter in colonial Jamestown, Virginia. According to a 1622 account published by the London Company, Pace played a key role in warning the Jamestown colony of an impending Powhatan raid on the settlement.
Temperance Flowerdew, Lady Yeardley was an early settler of the Jamestown Colony and a key member of the Flowerdew family, significant participants in the history of Jamestown. Temperance Flowerdew was wife of two Governors of Virginia, sister of another early colonist, aunt to a representative at the first General Assembly and "cousin-german" to the Secretary to the Colony.
William Powell, was an early Virginia colonist, landowner, militia officer and legislator. Considered an ancient planter for living in the Virginia colony during its first decade, he was one of two representatives from what became James City County, Virginia in the first Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619. His former plantation, now across the James River in Surry County, Virginia is now within Chippokes State Park.
The Swann's Point Plantation Site is an archaeological site near the James River in Surry County, Virginia. The Swann's Point area, located west of the mouth of Gray Creek, has a rich historic of precolonial Native American occupation, as well as significant early colonial settlements. It was first granted to Richard Pace, whose warning famously saved the Jamestown Colony during the Indian massacre of 1622. The Paces abandoned their settlement in 1624.
Cecily Jordan Farrar was one of the earlier women settlers of colonial Jamestown, Virginia. She arrived in the colony as a child in 1610 and was established as one of the few female ancient planters by 1620. After her husband Samuel Jordan died in 1623, Cecily obtained oversight of his 450-acre plantation, Jordan's Journey. In the Jamestown Muster of 1624-1625, she is one of fewer than ten women mentioned as a head of household and the only woman listed as sharing the head of household with a man she was not married to. In the year of Samuel Jordan's death, she set off the first breach of promise lawsuit in English North America when she chose the marriage proposal of William Farrar, who was bonded to help settle her estate, over that of Greville Pooley, who claimed his proposal had already been accepted. In 1625, Cecily prevailed when Pooley withdrew his claim. Afterward, she married William Farrar.
This is a timeline of events related to the settlement of Jamestown, in what today is the U.S. state of Virginia. Dates use the Old Style calendar.