1. Nathaniel Bradford of Accomack County, Virginia - Lower ...

John Smith’s map of Virginia. The peninsula of the eastern shore is at the bottom.
Brief History of the Virginia Colony on the Eastern Shore to 1654
English settlement on the mainland of Virginia first began in the
spring of 1607, with the founding of Jamestown [depicted left] by
the Virginia Company of London. The following year Captain
John Smith, one of the leaders of the new colony, set forth on an
exploration of the Chesapeake Bay, in the course of his journey
touching down at several spots on the eastern shore and even being
hosted by the Indians there. The first settlement on the east side of
the Chesapeake occurred in 1614 when Sir Thomas Dale sent a
small group of men to Smith’s Island to engage in fishing and salt
production. After a few years the salt works had fallen into disuse and the island was abandoned, but in
1619 the activities of Thomas Savage, who was engaged in trade with the local Indians on the shore,
revived interest in settlement. A year later the first Virginians began to arrive from across the bay and
settled on land set aside by the Company in the south of the peninsula on Old Plantation Creek. This was
the first permanent settlement of the English in Accomack.
The year 1622 saw a tremendous uprising of numerous western shore Indian
tribes against the encroaching English [depicted left]. This constituted a
serious attempt to eliminate the European presence in Virginia, and about a
third of the fledgling colony’s inhabitants lost their lives. A bitter and brutal
war ensued that lasted for much of the decade. However, the natives of
Accomack took no part in the massacre and as a result the colonists there were
spared not only the initial violence itself, but also its bloody aftermath. So
fearful was the mood of the colonists on the western shore after the massacre that there was talk among the
government at Jamestown of relocating the capital to the eastern shore. Any idea of fleeing Jamestown was
quickly set aside as being born of “a Panicke feare”, although the colony’s leaders did write to the company
Page 4 of 74 Copyright 2008 Adam M. Bradford