[Elizabeth City (Kecoughtan) (40)]
Early in 1625 the community of Elizabeth City, or rather the communities that made up Elizabeth City, could count some 359 persons. This included those "Beyond Hampton River" earlier referred to as "At Bucke Row." In the year before, 1624, this area had counted some 349 (thirty at "Bucke Roe") and in that year a total of 101 had died. These figures indicate both a high mortality as well as a high rate of immigration into this section. Elizabeth City, in 1625, was the largest community in Virginia, much larger than James City and its Island with its 175 persons (218 in 1624), which held second place in population.
In 1625 it was an established community including 279 males and eighty females. Four were negroes. More than twenty-five per cent were living beyond Hampton River. It had the large total of eighty-nine houses besides twenty stores, all beyond Hampton River, and twenty-four palisadoes. Its supplies of corn and fish were large and ample compared with other settlements although it was weak in livestock and poultry when viewed in comparison with Jamestown and some of the upriver communities. Although strong in small arms, it had a major allotment of ordnance. It did boast of six boats. Excepting Jamestown, this was the largest fleet in the Colony although the Eastern Shore was close with its five.
There were fifty-four separate musters or groups in Elizabeth City with the largest of them being that of Capt. William Tucker including his wife and daughter, "borne in Virginia in August," and eighteen others. Among these were three negroes, Antoney, Isabell and "William theire Child Baptised." There was, too, the muster of the ancient planters John and Anne Laydon and their four girls, all Virginia "borne." The oldest of them was the first child born in the Colony. Nicolas Martiau was listed here, as was Ensign Thomas Willoby and Edward Waters. In addition to the fifty-four musters, or groups, in Elizabeth City proper there were sixteen resident beyond Hampton River. These embraced Captain Francis West and Sergeant William Barry. The latter had fifteen servants which was a larger number than most musters enumerated. It appears that in excess of 4,000 acres of land had been patented and the greater part of it had been planted. Patents, too, had been issued for land across the Hampton Roads on the south side of the James River, yet none is listed as having been planted at this date.
Elizabeth City began on the site of an Indian village on the west side of Hampton Creek and was known by its Indian name of Kecoughtan for a decade. The English first saw this spot on May 1, 1607 when the three ships moved over from Cape Henry. The friendly Indians welcomed the shore party and took them to their village of some 18 houses of twigs and bark and twenty fighting men where there was food, a friendly smoke, and entertainment.
After this visit the settlers moved on up the James and it was fall before the English were here again. John Smith then traded successfully with them for corn. Smith was here again in the summer of 1608 and in the following winter always being well received and refreshed before leaving. There is clear evidence that the first post established by the Colonists for trade with the Indians was here where Indians and whites lived together in some number. When, however, Humphry Blunt out of Fort Algernourne, that is Old Point Comfort, was killed by Indians at Nansemond, Sir Thomas Gates used the opportunity to punish the Indians by driving the Kecoughtans away from their cornfields and fishing grounds. It was in the summer of 1610 that he "posseseinge himselfe of the Towne and the fertill ground there unto adjacentt haveinge well ordered all things he lefte his Lieftenantt Earley to comawnd his company and retourned to James Towne."
In October, 1609, after Smith's departure for England, President George Percy had sent Captain John Ratcliffe down to the mouth of the river to erect a fort due to "the plenty of the place for fisheinge" and "for the comodious discovery of any shippeinge which sholde come uppon the co[a]ste." He chose Point Comfort, so named in 1607, and designated it "Algernowns Foarte" after Lord De La Warr's "name and howse." When Ratcliffe was killed by the Indians while on an expedition up the York, Captain James Davis was named to command in his stead.
Those at Point Comfort in the winter of 1609-10 apparently fared much better than those at Jamestown. When Percy visited here he found them, he reports, "in good case and well lykeinge haveinge concealed their plenty from us above att James Towne beinge so well stored thatt the crabb fishes where with they fede their hoggs wold have bene a greate relefe unto us and saved many of our lykes."
It was on the Kecoughtan site that an English settlement (Hampton) began to evolve. For two or three years it was little more than a military outpost and a plantation where corn was grown to help fill the larder at Jamestown. To supplement the fort at Point Comfort, De La Warr had two more built on either side of a small stream, Fort Henry and Fort Charles. This river De La Warr called the Southampton (Hampton), the name that came to be applied, too, to the wide waters into which it flowed, Hampton Roads. The forts were intended both as strongholds against the Indians and as a rest stop, or acclimation point, for incoming settlers "that the weariness of the sea may be refreshed in this pleasing part of the countree."
The forts were abandoned in the fall, but when Sir Thomas Dale reached Point Comfort on May 22, 1611, he reoccupied them. He left James Davis in command of Fort Algernourne and proceeded to restore Fort Charles on the east side of, and Fort Henry on the west side of, Hampton River before going on to Jamestown.