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 19th century proved to be a time of numerous travails for both the city of Norfolk, and the region as whole. War, epidemics, fires, and economic depression reduced the development of the city. The city grew into the region's economic hub. By the late 19th century, the Norfolk and Western Railway with its line to the west established the community as a major coal ore exporting port and built a large trans-loading facility at Lambert's Point. It became the terminus for numerous other railroads, linking its ports to inland regions of Virginia and North Carolina, and at the turn of the 20th century, the coal mining regions of Appalachia were well connected to the port on the East Coast. Princess Anne and Norfolk counties would become leaders in truck farming, producing over half of all greens and potatoes consumed on the East Coast. Lynnhaven oysters also became a major export.
The region's African Americans achieved full emancipation following the Civil War (1861–1865), after the initial Emancipation Proclamation by 16th President Abraham Lincoln in 1862–1863, supplemented later by the three post-war constitutional amendments during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877), only to be faced with severe discrimination through white legislators' later imposition by the 1890s of Jim Crow Laws. After Virginia passed a new post-war state constitution, African Americans were essentially disfranchised for more than 60 years until their leadership and activism won passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. In 1907, it was host to the Jamestown Exposition commemorating the tercennary (300th anniversary) of the first English settlement at Jamestown on the James River, the only world's fair to ever be held in Virginia. As a result of its publicity and visits by high-ranking officials during the exposition (in which the Great White Fleet, of 26th President Theodore Roosevelt with the rebuilt United States Navy after the Spanish–American War of 1898 was launched from Hampton Roads harbor), it became the later location of the Norfolk Naval Station.
Today, the city of Norfolk is a major American naval and world shipping hub, as well as the center of the Hampton Roads region, both on the southside and the peninsula to the north of the extensive harbor between the James and York Rivers, with the railroad terminus and ship construction port of Newport News from the 19th century on the west shore and Hampton on the south and east sides, dating back to its founding in the colonial era as Virginia's original port.
Pre-colonial The first evidence of humans inhabiting Virginia is from 9,500 BC.
In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh led an expedition in search of a suitable place to establish a permanent English settlement in North America. By mid-July of that year, two of his ships had landed on Roanoke Island (now a part of Dare County). Arthur Barlowe, one of Raleigh's commanders, kept a journal which states the area was inhabited by a tribe of Native Americans called the Chesepian. According to Barlowe, the local Chesepians claimed that a nearby city called Skicoak was the Chesepians' greatest city. However, the exact location of Skicoak has remained undetermined.
When Jamestown settlers arrived at Cape Henry (in present-day Virginia Beach) almost 23 years later in April 1607, they found no traces of Skicoak. According to William Strachey's The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britanica (1612), the Chesepians had been wiped out by Chief Wahunsunacock (better known as Chief Powhatan), the head of the Virginia Peninsula-based Powhatan Confederacy in the intervening years.
Colonial period (1607–1775)
In 1607, the Governor for the Virginia Colony, Sir George Yeardley established four incorporations, termed "citties" for the developed portion of the colony. These citties were to form the basis for the government of the colony in the newly created House of Burgesses, with the southeastern portion of the Hampton Roads region falling under the Elizabeth Cittie incorporation. In 1622, Adam Thoroughgood (1604–1640) of King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, became one of the earliest Englishmen to settle in the area that was to become South Hampton Roads, when at the age of 18 he became an indentured servant to pay for passage to the Virginia Colony. After his period of contracted servitude was finished, he earned his freedom and soon became a leading citizen of the fledgling colony.
Meanwhile, after years of continuing struggles at Jamestown, the now bankrupt Virginia Company had its royal charter revoked by King James I in 1624 and Virginia became a crown colony. Also at this time, the King granted of land to Thomas Willoughby, in what is now the Ocean View section of the city. The entire population of the Virginia colony was estimated to be 5,000 people at this time.
In 1629, Thoroughgood was elected to the House of Burgesses for Elizabeth Cittie. Five years later, in 1634, the King had the colony reorganized under a system of 8 shires, with much of the Hampton Roads region becoming part of Elizabeth City Shire. In 1636, Thoroughgood was granted a large land holding along the Lynnhaven River for having persuaded 105 people to settle in the colony. Thoroughgood is also credited with suggesting the name of Norfolk, in honor of his birthplace. New Norfolk County was created when the South Hampton Roads portion of Elizabeth City Shire was partitioned off in that same year. Also during this reorganization, King James granted a further to Willoughby. This land would become the city of Norfolk in future. Shortly thereafter, in 1637, New Norfolk County was itself split into two counties, Upper Norfolk County and Lower Norfolk County. The modern city of Norfolk is located in Lower Norfolk.
In 1649 the English couple William and Susannah Moseley migrated with their family to Lower Norfolk County. On the Eastern Branch Elizabeth River from Norfolk, they built a manor house with Dutch-style gambrel roof which later became known as Rolleston Hall. Rolleston Hall stood more than 200 years, until it burned down in the late 19th century.https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0DE6D8123EEE34BC4950DFB166838E679FDE The Wise and Terry Letters: Gov. Wise Wants to Reoccupy His Old Home...
In 1670, a royal decree directed the "building of storehouses to receive imported merchandise ... and tobacco for export" for each of the colony's 20 counties. This marked the beginning of Norfolk's importance as a port city, due to its natural deepwater channels. Soon after 1673, the "Half Moone" fort at the site of what is now Town Pointe Park. This fort was constructed due to feared attack by the Dutch, but this threat did not materialize. Norfolk quickly grew in size, and by 1682 a charter for the establishment of the "Towne of Lower Norfolk County" had been issued by Parliament. Norfolk was one of only three cities in the Virginia Colony to receive a royal charter, the other two being Jamestown and Williamsburg. The town initially encompassed a land area northeast of the point of the confluence of the Eastern and Southern Branches of the Elizabeth River (today the point is in downtown). In 1691, a final county subdivision took place when Lower Norfolk County was split to form Norfolk County (present day Norfolk, Chesapeake, and parts of Portsmouth) and Princess Anne County (present day Virginia Beach). Norfolk was incorporated in 1705 and re-chartered as a borough in 1736.
In 1753, Lt. Governor Robert Dinwiddie presented the growing city of 4,000 with a long, 104 ounce silver mace. The mace was a symbol of royal authority and is currently displayed in the Chrysler Museum of Art.
By 1775, Norfolk had developed into one of the most prosperous cities in Virginia. It was a major shipbuilding center and an important trans-shipment point for the export of goods such as tobacco, corn, cotton, and timber from Virginia and North Carolina, to Europe and beyond. In turn, goods from the West Indies such as rum and sugar, and finished manufactured products from Europe, were imported back through Norfolk and shipped to the rest of the lower colonies. Much of the West Indies and American colonial products that flowed through the harbor were by this time produced with the use of slave labor.
Revolutionary War (1775–1783)
Norfolk had been a strong base of Loyalist support throughout the start of the American Revolution. In the early summer of 1775, Lord Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, tried to reestablish control of the colony from Norfolk. In November, a battle took place at Kemp's Landing which provided Dunmore and the loyalists a clear victory, but it was nonetheless clear by then that the war was escalating. The governor immediately issued Dunmore's Proclamation, which promised freedom to any rebel-owned slave who joined His Majesty's forces. At the end of November, Dunmore set up a stronghold in Norfolk,Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Hunter) (2 Dec 1775, page 3) via research.history.org- accessed 2008-01-03 demolishing some 30 houses in the course of its construction. A few days later, based on false intelligence received, Dunmore's 600 soldiers were defeated in the Battle of Great Bridge, where 102 of Dunmore's soldiers were killed or injured, compared with just one injured soldier for the patriots.Virginia Gazette (Pinkney) (13 December 1775, page 2), via research.history.org- accessed 2008-01-03 Dunmore and their loyalists fled Norfolk and boarded their ship, thus ending 168 years of British rule in Virginia.
Dunmore remained in the river off Norfolk with a small squadron of armed ships and on New Year's Day 1776, Lord Dunmore's ships began a bombardment that escalated into the Burning of Norfolk. British troops also went ashore to burn the waterfront buildings, and thus played right into the hands of their enemies. The rebels were quite happy to see a largely Loyalist city destroyed, happier still to be able to blame it on the British, and over the next two days they encouraged the spread of fires, while looting unburned houses.Guy, Louis L. jr. Norfolk's Worst Nightmare Norfolk Historical Society Courier, Spring 2001, accessed 2008-01-03 The Virginia Assembly found that of the 882 houses burned during those two days, only 19 had been set alight by the British. A further 416—in effect, all that remained standing—were destroyed in February 1776 to prevent the British from using them as cover if they returned.Eckenrode, H.J.The Revolution in Virginia (chap. III: The Struggle for Norfolk) Boston MA, Houghton Mifflin (1916), via newrivernotes.com- accessed 2008-01-03Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts: records of Commissioners to examine claims in Norfolk, 1777–1836. (Library of Virginia archives, ref. APA 235) Only Saint Paul's Episcopal Church survived the bombardment and subsequent fires, however the church was dented by a cannonball fired by the HMS Liverpool.
Antebellum: rebirth, fire, and disease (1783–1861)
Four years after the Revolutionary War, a fire along the city's waterfront destroyed some 300 buildings and the city experienced a serious economic setback as a result. At the turn of the 19th century, Fort Norfolk was constructed by the Federal government to guard the harbor.