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Updated: May 26, 2025


It was one organized and promoted by a group within, yet outside of, the regular Company projects. It was named for Richard Martin, an attorney for the London Company. He was a leading member in the Society of Martin's Hundred as this special group of adventurers was known. This was five miles toward Jamestown and five toward "Newportes Newes."

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.

The census of 1625 from "Newportes newes" lists only the muster of Daniel Gookin and would indicate that neither he, nor his son, was in residence at the time. The listing shows only a total of twenty servants, eight of whom came in the Flyinge Hart in 1621 and twelve of the forty who had come in the Providence in 1623.

A second reference, one in January, 1620 lists "Newports Newes." The name seems established before Gookin and his friends, the Newces, entered the scene; hence it is improbable that Newce or Newcetown, Ireland, is responsible for the name. The name "Newportes Poynte" is shown on Robert Tindall's map of 1608 but it refers to a point on the York River rather than to the Newport News site.

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