History
The York River is arguably the most historically significant location for early colonial history found anywhere in America. European and Native American civilizations collided here. This was the land of Powhatan, Opechanacanough, Pocahantas, and the legendary explorations of Captain John Smith. No wonder this area’s colonial land patents (King’s grant lands) were so highly sought after by the first families of Virginia for the their Colonial plantations. The Washington’s, Lee’s, Anderson’s, Roane’s, Tucker’s, and Taliaferro’s settled its shores. History lives and breathes here. It is woven into the fabric of the estuary and its surrounding lands.
Lee Family & Indian Massacres
Opechanacanough
Similar to Richard Anderson who founded Anderson’s Neck in 1662, the progenitor of the Lee family, Col. Richard Lee I, left England in hope of finding a better life in America. He came to America with nothing but eventually became the largest landowner and perhaps the wealthiest man in the Virginia colony. He settled the plantation he called “Paradise” just east of Anderson’s Neck on a tributary of the York River known as the Poropotank. Little did he know Chief Opechanacanough would run his family off this sacred land the Powhatan Indians called their own in the Indian Massacres of 1622 and 1644. Col. Lee would probably also be shocked to learn his great-great-great grandson, Robert E. Lee, would later become the Confederate General of the Army of Virginia splitting asunder the upstart colony, turned independent Republic.
