Qualla: Surry County, Virginia https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Surry County, Virginia https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia Surry County, Virginia: Introduction https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia/ Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. To reach Surry County, you take the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry across the James River, the way colonial Virginians did. Cars roll on at Glasshouse Point on the north shore and roll off at Scotland Wharf on the south, where the road bends inland through pine forests and tobacco fields. Surry has 6,561 residents according to the 2020 census, which means there are still more deer in some townships than people. It was formed in 1652 from the southern half of James City County and named for the English county of Surrey. For more than 350 years its economy has run on agriculture - corn, peanuts, soybeans, pine timber, and the smoked Virginia hams for which the area is famous. It contains nineteen sites on the National Register, including Bacon's Castle and Chippokes Plantation. It is a place where the past has not retreated, only quieted down.

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

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/dq97-surry-county-virginia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Surry County, Virginia: Two Parishes and a Castle https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia/ Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Surry County was created in 1652 from a portion of James City County south of the James River - one of the original eight Virginia counties formed in 1634. Its first two parishes of the Church of England were Lawne's Creek and Southwark. In 1665, Arthur Allen built a Jacobean bri...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/dq97-surry-county-virginia-two-parishes-and-a-castle.mp3 0:06 2 full Surry County, Virginia: Cobham, Cobblers, and Cavalry https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia/ Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Surry's first town, Cobham, was established in 1691 at the mouth of Gray's Creek where it flows into the James. Sussex County was carved from the southwestern end of Surry in 1754. During the American Revolutionary War, Banastre Tarleton's British Legion looted the county. During...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/dq97-surry-county-virginia-cobham-cobblers-and-cavalry.mp3 0:06 3 full Surry County, Virginia: The Lumber Town That Disappeared https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia/ Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1873, a New Jersey timberman named David Steele began a lumber business in Surry County with Baltimore financing. He went bankrupt within a decade. Baltimore investors Waters and Company then incorporated the Surry Lumber Company in 1885, and in 1886 they built the Surry, Suss...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/dq97-surry-county-virginia-the-lumber-town-that-disappeared.mp3 0:06 4 full Surry County, Virginia: Massive Resistance https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia/ Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's response, called Massive Resistance, closed public schools across the state rather than integrate them. Surry County participated. The county closed its white public schools so that Black students could not attend th...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/dq97-surry-county-virginia-massive-resistance.mp3 0:06 5 full Surry County, Virginia: Reactors and Fields https://qualla.com/surry-county-virginia/ Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. The two-unit Surry Nuclear Power Plant was commissioned in 1972 and 1973 on a peninsula in the James River, the largest single piece of industrial infrastructure in the county. It is licensed to operate through 2053. From the air, its cooling towers and containment domes are visi...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/7/surry-county-virginia-wp/dq97-surry-county-virginia-reactors-and-fields.mp3 0:06 6 full