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Updated: May 3, 2025
Through courtesy of the Daily Press, Newport News. Christmas at Kecoughtan 1608 A group of colonists from Jamestown bound for Powhatan's seat on the York River put in at Kecoughtan after encountering adverse weather. Christmas in the seventeenth century was celebrated on the day known to the present as "Old Christmas," that is the sixth of January.
Once started, they languished, as did Warwicktown in one of the eight original shires. Except for its ports of entry, such as Jamestown, Norfolk and Kecoughtan, Virginia in the seventeenth century was not adapted to urban living. Upon arrival in Virginia, the colonists faced a vast forest.
"To see the strangers and their great white birds again which I beheld from Kecoughtan, Brother. I cannot rest for my eagerness to know what they are like nearby." "Hast thou not heard our father's word that no one shall go near the island where the strangers be?" he asked. "My father meaneth not me," she answered proudly. "As thou knowest, he permitteth me much that is forbidden to others."
The Elizabeth City community embraced the sites of Point Comfort, Fort Charles, Fort Henry, and Kecoughtan, west of Hampton Creek, as well as the areas of Buck Roe, "Strawberry Banks," east of Hampton Creek, and "Indian Thickett." The English first saw the site of Newport News on May 2, 1607 as they ascended the James River en route to Jamestown.
At Kecoughtan they were received with much ceremony, for Pocahontas knew what was due her and how, when it was necessary, to put aside her childish manner for one more dignified. Opechanchanough greeted her kindly.
The cultivation of tobacco soon spread from John Rolfe's garden to every available plot of ground within the fortified districts in Jamestown. By 1617 the value of tobacco was well known in every settlement or plantation in Virginia Bermuda, Dale's Gift, Henrico, Jamestown, Kecoughtan, and West and Shirley Hundreds each under a commander.
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.
Some were to old residents of Newport News and Kecoughtan and several were issued to new arrivals. One grant for 150 acres to Maurice Thompson had been made as early as March 4, 1621. Patented acreage at "Blunt Pointe" and "belowe Blunt Point" in 1625 embraced some 2,200 acres and 1,390 acres respectively.
Setting sail for Jamestown, and arriving at Kecoughtan, the sight of the furs and other plunder, and of Captain Smith wounded, led the Indians to think that he had been at war with the Massawomeks; which opinion Smith encouraged.
This very populous area was readily accessible to the port of Kecoughtan both by water and by land. In this latter area, first settled in 1630, patents had been assigned, one including a large acreage to Christopher Calthrope, and it is reasonable to conclude that both commodities and servants were wanted.
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