At noon on October 19, two redoubts southeast of Yorktown were occupied by allied troops—one by an American unit and the other by a French detachment. At 2 p. m., the British Army, clad in a new issue of uniforms and led by Brigadier General O’Hara (Cornwallis was ill), marched out from Yorktown along the York-Hampton Road to the tune of an old British march titled “The World Turned Upside Down.”
In the vicinity of the present national cemetery, O’Hara reached the head of the allied column. It appears that he sought first the Count de Rochambeau, but was referred to Washington. Washington, in turn, sent him to Major General Lincoln, who accepted his sword—the token of defeat and surrender—and then returned it. Following this, the British Army marched down Surrender Road between columns of allied troops, Americans on the British left (east) and French on the British right (west), to Surrender Field where the formal surrender was effected. “... we came directly onto a level field or large meadow, where ... we ... marched one regiment after another, stacked muskets and lay down all arms ...”, wrote one of the British soldiers. Thus, the siege of Yorktown ended, the climax of the Revolution had passed, and America could look forward toward a free and independent status. A new nation had been born!
THE SEQUEL.
After the surrender, the British units returned to Yorktown. After 2 days’ rest, the rank and file and junior officers were marched off to prison camps in western Virginia and Maryland. Both Washington and Rochambeau invited their distinguished prisoners to their tables, and for several days camp dinners were the fashion, the English attending as guests. The American units of the Allied armies took up the return march to the Hudson about November 1. The French, for the most part, remained on the peninsula until spring and then left for Rhode Island, having wintered in Yorktown, Williamsburg, Hampton, and other nearby points. De Grasse sailed for the West Indies shortly after the siege was over. The British expedition, which was to relieve Cornwallis, reached Virginia waters late in October, too late to be of any use.
The “Town of York”
Yorktown had its origin in the Virginia Port Act of 1691—one of the legislative measures by which British colonial authorities and Virginia leaders sought to force urban development in the colony. It specified that 50 acres should be procured for a port to serve York County and that it would be upon “Mr. Benjamin Reads land.” This was a part of the Capt. Nicholas Martiau property (originally patented about 1635) which, by 1691, had descended through Martiau’s daughter, Elizabeth, and George Read to their son, Benjamin Read. The 50 acres were situated at the point where the York River narrows to about half a mile. There had been a ferry here for many years. Maj. Lawrence Smith was engaged to make the survey, and a plat made by him is still preserved in the official records of York County.
Although Yorktown (variously called Port of York, Borough of York, York, Town of York, and Yorktown) was not established until 1691, the area around Yorktown had been well known to the English for generations. The river itself had been explored, and frequently visited, by Capt. John Smith and his fellow settlers at Jamestown. They came most frequently by water, but it was not until the 1630-32 period that early Virginians began to push overland from the James River and to establish homes on the banks of the York. Among the men who braved the Indians, the forests, and natural enemies to establish homes on the creeks and tidewaters above and below Yorktown were Capt. John West (who became Governor in 1635), Capt. John Utie, Capt. Robert Felgate, and, a little later, Henry Lee. The Indians before them had seen, and recognized, the strategic value and beauty of this location. Chief Powhatan was residing on the north side of the river, above Gloucester Point, when Smith first saw him in 1607, and the Chiskiack Indians lived on the south side near present-day Yorktown until pressure from the white man caused them to move.
Nicolas Martiau, a French Huguenot, first received a grant of land in the Yorktown area. It was a part of this tract, which originally lay between the holdings of Gov. Sir John Harvey and the estate of Richard Townsend, that in 1691 was acquired and laid out into the original 85 lots of Yorktown. Through the marriages of his descendants, Martiau became the earliest-known American ancestor of George Washington. A granite marker in his honor now stands on Ballard Street.
The earliest settlers on the York pointed the way for others who came in increasing numbers in the years that followed. The population grew to such an extent that in 1634 a county was laid out to embrace the settlements which had been made on the York (those around later Yorktown and those on the Back and Poquoson Rivers some miles to the southeast). Designated Charles River Shire, it was one of Virginia’s eight original shires (counties). At that time, the York River was known as the Charles, this having replaced the Indian name of Pamunkey. About 1643, the name of the river was changed to York, from which both town and county take their name.
About 2 miles southeast of Yorktown is a tidal inlet, Wormley Creek, named for Christopher Wormley, a local property owner and a member of the council of colonial Virginia. On the west side of this inlet, a little town (perhaps best described as a small settlement) took form. It seemingly grew up around “Yorke Fort,” built on the point formed by Wormley Creek and York River. In 1633, “Yorke” was selected as a receiving point, and stores were ordered built to serve this settlement and that of Chiskiack just up the river. “Yorke” was separate and distinct from present Yorktown, but actually a direct antecedent. Early courts convened here, and there were a church and a courthouse with its customary instruments of justice (stocks, a pillory, and a ducking stool). The tomb of Maj. William Gooch here is one of the oldest existing dated tombs in the United States.