Eastern Shore Virginia History

The first known account of a visit by Englishmen to the Eastern Shore was written in 1603 by Thomas Canner, one of the two men who survived an ambush by hostile Indians.

The landing party of seven was led by Captain Gilbert, nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh, who following his uncle’s orders was searching for traces of the colony which had vanished from Roanoke Island, NC, 15 years earlier.

In the summer of 1608, Captain John Smith and a party of 32 men in four boats came from the colony at Jamestown to explore and map the area. They made contact with the Indians of the Eastern Shore and established friendly relations with the Indian King Debedeavon and his brother Kiptopeke.

The first permanent English settler, Thomas Savage, came to the Shore about 1614 and his descendants still live here today. Other settlers followed rapidly, and a county government soon was established. Today, Northampton County possesses the oldest continuous court records in the nation, dating from 1632.

King Debedeavon’s friendship with the English settlers helped the struggling colony at Jamestown to survive. When food ran short in the winter of 1613-1614, Debedeavon sent canoes loaded with food across the storm-tossed Chesapeake Bay to feed the colonists.