Kingsmill On The James
In 1607, Captain Gabriel Archer commanded one of the first English sailing
ships to navigate the James River. Records show that Archer would have
established the first English settlement on the land now known as Kingsmill
had the water
been three feet deeper near the shoreline. Instead, he settled slightly
farther up the river at Jamestown.
Less than a century after the Jamestown settlers arrived, there were plantations on the land. In 1736, one was named for the earliest owner of the land – Richard Kingsmill. Today, some of the outbuildings of this plantation still stand, not far from a prehistoric Indian campsite.
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