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Boroughs sending burgesses were James City, Charles City, the City of Henricus, Kecoughtan, Smith's Hundred, Flowerdieu Hundred, Martin's Hundred, Martin Brandon, Ward's Plantation, Lawne's Plantation, and Argall's Gift. This first Assembly attended to Indian questions, agriculture, and religion. Most notable is this year 1619, a year wrought of gold and iron.
John Rolfe reported in 1621: At Dale's Gift, being upon the sea near unto Cape Charles, about thirty miles from Kecoughtan, are seventeen inhabitants under command of Lieutenant Cradock. All these are fed and maintained by the Colony. Their labor is to make salt and catch fish....
The region, which has its name from the Indian term for lowlands, had afforded the Kecoughtan Indians a rich hunting-ground. Midst tall pines, oak, walnut, cedar, wild cherry, locust, swamp willow, holly, myrtle and persimmon, entangled with grape vines, reaching the tops of trees, and Virginia creeper, game found a haven.
Their condition now brought them in almost daily contact with the aborigines. Ratcliffe and Martin were alike incompetent, and Smith assumed the guidance of affairs. Finding their provisions again nearly exhausted, he went with a party down the river to Kecoughtan to obtain supplies from the natives.
Four corporations were to be created, with Kecoughtan, Jamestown, Charles City, and Henrico as capital cities in each, respectively; and it was announced that thereafter the people of the colony were to share with the company in the making of laws. Accordingly, July 30, 1619, the first legislative assembly that ever convened on the American continent met in the church at Jamestown.
For once he paints a brighter picture: The next night, being lodged at Kecoughtan, six or seven days the extreme wind, rain, frost, and snow caused us to keep Christmas among the savages, where we were never more merry, nor fed on more plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowl, and good bread.
Her maidens, who had never seen her thus, added her fright to they own, and none stopped until they had reached the lodge at Kecoughtan. The squaws rushed out when they caught sight of the frightened children and tried to soothe them, but they could get no explanation of what had startled them.
Again, the location must be healthful, and quite easily defended, for the attack by the natives upon the colonists when they first landed at the cape they called Henry after the young Prince of Wales, had given them a taste of what they might have to expect. It was the rumor of this fight which had reached Opechanchanough at Kecoughtan.
The earliest known reference to the name Newport News is in a letter written from Jamestown on November 11, 1619 when the inhabitants of Kecoughtan were assured the opportunity "to choose ther divident alonge the banke of the great river betweene Kequohtan and Newportes Newes." The origin of its name is obscure yet it is not unlikely that Captain Christopher Newport is honored here.
Its construction, at a point across the Appomattox from Bermuda Hundred, while begun, was not pushed until the fall of 1614. Here Bermuda City was fashioned to be "an impregnable retreat, against any forraign invasion, how powerfull so ever." This became the fourth and last of the public, or general, corporations taking its place with James City, Kecoughtan, and Henrico.
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