Qualla: James City County, Virginia

James City County, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Wiseman, CC BY 3.0. It began with three small ships, an exhausted crew, and a swampy peninsula chosen for its defensibility rather than its comfort. In May 1607, Captain Christopher Newport guided his expedition forty miles up the James River and dropped anchor at a wooded island. The colonists who waded ashore would name the place Jamestown, after their king. Most of them would not survive the first five years. But the county that grew up around them, formally chartered in 1634 as James City Shire by order of King Charles I, has never stopped existing - making James City County one of only five original Virginia shires still extant in essentially its original form. Four hundred years of American history begin here, beneath the loblolly pines and tidal creeks of the Virginia Peninsula.

Image: Andrew Wiseman | CC BY 3.0

James City County, Virginia: The Settlement That Almost Wasn't

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first years were a slow catastrophe. Disease, starvation, and conflict with the Powhatan Confederacy killed most of the early settlers. What saved the colony was an accident of botany. In 1612, John Rolfe successfully cultivated imported tobacco strains, and Virginia finally ...

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

James City County, Virginia: The Capital on Middle Plantation

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vince Flango, Public domain. By the late 1690s, Jamestown had burned for the second time, and Virginia's leaders had had enough of the malarial lowland. They moved the capital inland to Middle Plantation, a fortified settlement on the high ground midway across the peninsula. Renamed Williamsburg in honor of ...

Image: Vince Flango | Public domain

James City County, Virginia: Rockefeller's Restoration

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Humberto Moreno, CC BY 2.0. What changed Williamsburg's fate was an Episcopal priest, an oil heir, and a vision. In the 1920s, Reverend W.A.R. Goodwin convinced John D. Rockefeller Jr. to fund the restoration of the colonial town. The Rockefellers bought hundreds of buildings, demolished anachronisms, and r...

Image: Humberto Moreno | CC BY 2.0

James City County, Virginia: Beer, Theme Parks, and Pottery

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Vaoverland, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Kingsmill tract east of town sat unproductive for decades until 1969, when Colonial Williamsburg chairman Winthrop Rockefeller began negotiations with August Anheuser Busch Jr. of St. Louis. The deal that emerged reshaped the local economy. Anheuser-Busch built a brewery, the...

Image: User:Vaoverland | CC BY-SA 3.0

James City County, Virginia: Watersheds and Working Lands

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vaoverland, CC BY-SA 3.0. Strip away the attractions and James City County is still 142 square miles of Tidewater Virginia, straddling the James and York River watersheds. Eleven sub-watersheds cut through it, including Powhatan Creek, College Creek, and the Chickahominy. The Grove community on the southe...

Image: Vaoverland | CC BY-SA 3.0