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Updated: May 3, 2025
Attention was given, too, to Kecoughtan and a settlement was made even on the Eastern Shore. Despite all of this, Jamestown remained as Virginia's capital. The first settlement now was looked upon as chiefly a place of safety for hogs and cattle. In 1616 it was a post of fifty under the command of Lieutenant John Sharpe, who was acting in the absence of Captain Francis West.
Lord Delaware at once ordered Gates to attack and drive Powhatan's son Pochins and his Indians from Kecoughtan; and when this was done he erected two forts at the mouth of Hampton River, called Charles and Henry, about a musket-shot distance from Fort Algernourne.
The choice acreage ever in demand by the colonists was, of course, the open land found in and near the Indian villages. Many a land patent later embraced an Indian field. The Company lands in Elizabeth City were the fertile fields of the Kecoughtan Indians, who had been driven from their habitations there, in 1610, after the murder of a colonist, Humphrey Blount.
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.
Cargo space on inbound ships was too valuable and supplies too badly needed to fill ships' holds with bricks, especially when materials for making them were so close at hand. Similar houses were being built in other areas at the same period. Mrs. John Bush had two houses at Kecoughtan by 1618.
A few days later news came from Opechanchanough that the big canoe, so eagerly expected by the strangers, had been seen at Kecoughtan and was now on its way up the river. Powhatan was astounded, for it was the very day the white captain had foretold its arrival. Truly a man who could see so far across the waves of the big water was one to be feared.
Petitions were addressed to the company in England for permission to change "the savage name of Kecoughtan," for workmen to erect a "university and college," and for granting the girls and boys of all the old planters a share of land each, "because that in a new plantation it is not known whether man or woman be the more necessary."
In 1619 the settlement of Kecoughtan was captained by William Tucker and he and William Capps represented the settlement in the first House of Burgesses. It was evidently on their petition that the Assembly was asked "to change the savage name of Kiccowtan, and to give that Incorporation a new name." It was so ordered, and the new name was Elizabeth City after the daughter of King James.
Being but six or seauen in company he went downe the river to Kecoughtan: where at first they scorned him, as a famished man; and would in derision offer him a handfull of Corne, a peece of bread, for their swords and muskets, and such like proportions also for their apparell.
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.
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