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  • Millions of years ago, what became known as Prince George County lay under the ocean. As the waters recede, the geographical features that define Prince George, such as the James River and the many swamps covering the area, begin to form.

  • The Weyanoke and Appamattoc peoples populate much of Prince George until European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries.

  • Substantial land grants were offered to settlers all along the James River with John Martin, an original Jamestown settler, receiving a grant of 7,000 acres establishing Martin’s Brandon Plantation in 1616.

  • The House of Burgesses is established in July, becoming the first form of representative government in North America.

  • Sir George Yeardley establishes Flowerdew Hundred. Here, the first windmill in North America is built.

  • Opechancanough, a Powhatan leader, leads coordinated attacks on English settlers on March 22, 1622. Across eleven plantations in the Prince George area, at least 74 settlers are killed and six plantations abandoned. Survivors flock to the plantations that remained, namely Flowerdew Hundred and Jordan’s Journey, for safety.

  • Virginia becomes a royal colony under King James I.

  • A second attack on English settlers by Virginia Indians occurs. These attacks result in the General Assembly action to create Fort Henry and other outposts across the colony.

  • Virginia’s colonial capital moves from Jamestown to Williamsburg.

  • Renowned Prince George native and Patriot Richard Bland is born at his family’s plantation at Jordan’s Point.

  • Amelia County is formed from Prince George County.

  • Current Merchant’s Hope Church building is constructed. The church houses a 1639 copy of the New Testament attached to a 1640 copy of the Old Testament, which is now on display at the Heritage Center.

  • Dinwiddie County is formed from western Prince George County, taking most of Petersburg into its jurisdiction as well.

  • Richard Bland writes An Inquiry into the Rights of British Colonies. Published in Williamsburg and reprinted throughout England, the pamphlet questions the full authority of Parliament in the American colonies and even earns the praise of influential thinkers like Thomas Jefferson.

  • Shots are fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts on April 19, marking the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

  • Richard Bland collapses and dies on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg on October 26. He is buried at Jordan’s Point on November 7.

  • Virginia’s capital moves from Williamsburg to Richmond.

  • British Major General William Philips and his troops march through Prince George County to attack Americans defending Petersburg on April 25. The battle ends in British victory, but Phillips dies on May 13 and is buried at Blandford Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

  • General Charles Earl Cornwallis surrenders to General George Washington at Yorktown on October 19.

  • The Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia between May and September to address the failures of the Articles of Confederation. From the meeting, the new United States Constitution is introduced to the states for ratification.

  • Aberdeen is built by Thomas Cocke on 1,685 acres.

  • The Louisiana Purchase occurs under President Thomas Jefferson, doubling American territory overnight.

  • Due to deteriorating relations, the United States declares war on Great Britain on June 18, beginning the War of 1812.

  • Congress enacts the Missouri Compromise into law. It maintains a delicate balance between the North and South over the issue of slavery, with Missouri entering the Union as a slave state and Maine entering as a free state.

  • Peter Randolph is born into slavery on Brandon Plantation.

  • In an attempt to gain territory, the United States declares war on Mexico on April 25, starting the Mexican-American War.

  • Edmund Ruffin becomes president of the Virginia State Agricultural Society.

  • The first light is established at Jordan’s Point. It is a beacon placed on top of the lightkeeper’s dwelling, and a fog bell is rung by hand if visibility is poor.

  • The current Martin’s Brandon Church building is constructed.

  • South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union on December 20.

  • Virginia secedes from the Union on April 17.

  • The Prince George Cavalry organizes at the Prince George County Courthouse under the command of Captain Edmund Ruffin, Jr. The cavalry later occupies Fort Powhatan.

  • General Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign through Virginia begins in May. Reaching the James River on June 14, engineers construct an eleven-foot wide, 2,100-foot-long pontoon bridge from Weyanoke Point on the north bank to Windmill Point at Flowerdew Hundred on the south bank. The bridge is completed in nine hours. From June 15 to 17, forty percent of Grant’s army crosses into Prince George County over the bridge. The subsequent combat and nine-month occupation brings devastation not only to the landscape but to the social, political. and economic infrastructure of the Prince George region.

  • The Battle of Baylor’s Farm occurs on June 15. Just a two-hour long skirmish, Union forces encountered unexpected Confederate resistance. Though the Union troops made it through, it bought the Confederates in Petersburg more time to strengthen the city’s defenses.

  • The Beefsteak Raid occurs from September 14 to September 17. Confederate troops under General Wade Hampton capture 2,468 head of cattle belonging to the Union from Coggins Point.

  • From March into April, Abraham Lincoln visits Grant at his headquarters at City Point. Lincoln spends three of the last four weeks of his life in Prince George County.

  • President Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. on April 14. He dies on April 15.

  • Harrison Grove Baptist Church is founded.

  • Virginia is restored to the Union as a state on January 26.

  • Prince George County’s first public school opens. It is known as School Number One, Brandon District.

  • Reconstruction ends in the American South.

  • The courthouse building in which the Prince George Regional Heritage Center is located is presented to the county on October 22.

  • Starting in 1888, hundreds of families from Eastern Europe come to Prince George County to farm the land left devastated by the Civil War.

  • Both the United States and Spain declare war on the other, starting the Spanish-American War.

  • E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company begin building a dynamite factory in Prince George County. The town of Hopewell emerges as a fledgling community made up of the factory’s employees and their families.

  • The DuPont Plant converts to producing guncotton.

  • The United States declares war on Germany on April 6, joining World War I on the side of the allies.

  • World War I ends at 11a.m. on November 11.

  • Camp Lee closes and ownership goes to the Commonwealth of Virginia. The land is designated as a game preserve.

  • Petersburg annexes 421 acres of Prince George County.

  • Creation of the Petersburg National Military Park is authorized by Congress.

  • Prince George County Bank moves from the Prince George County courthouse to a new building across the street.

  • Petersburg National Military Park opens.

  • The Disputanta Training School, a segregated school for black students, is dedicated with J.E.J. Moore as its principal.

  • Frances L. Buren buys and takes over business from James T. Williams, making it into Buren’s Store.

  • The Quartermaster Replacement Training Center (QMRTC) at Camp Lee begins operations in February.

  • Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, fully emerging the country into the conflict of World War II.

  • The United States drops “The Fat Man” and “The Little Boy” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  • Camp Lee was officially designated as “The Quartermaster Center.”

  • Camp Lee is renamed Fort Lee and becomes a permanent installation.

  • Camp Lee is renamed Fort Lee and becomes a permanent installation.

  • Prince George High School opens.

  • Petersburg annexes 662 acres of Prince George County.

  • Petersburg National Military Park is renamed Petersburg National Battlefield on August 24.

  • Dr. William N. Clayborn becomes the first African American principal of an integrated school in Virginia.

  • The last black high school graduation in Prince George County occurs.

  • Hopewell annexes three square miles of Prince George County.

  • Petersburg annexes nine square miles of Prince George County.

  • The tanker SS Marine Floridian crashes into the Benjamin Harrison Memorial Bridge, closing the bridge for over a year.

  • The new Prince George County High School opens, and the former high school becomes N.B. Clements Middle School.

  • The United States is shaken by terrorist attacks on September 11.

  • Southpoint Industrial Park opens.

  • Rolls-Royce opens its first manufacturing plant in Virginia on May 2.

  • Rolls-Royce closes its Prince George factory.

  • American Indians arrive in Prince George, as suggested by archaeological evidence.

  • In May, Captain Christopher Newport visits the area in search of a site for a permanent English settlement, but Jamestown becomes the chosen place. Arriving it what is now Prince George County on May 8, Sir George Percy recorded that Jamestown settlers landed “in the country[sic] of the Apamatica,” where they encountered “many stout and able savages.” From May of 1607 to 1613, the land of Prince George County was a corporation of the Virginia Company of London.

  • The first minister for Martin’s Brandon Parish arrives from England.

  • The first enslaved Africans arrive in Virginia in August, marking the meeting of three distinct cultures— European, Indigenous, and African— in the New World.

  • Jordan’s Journey, also known as Beggar’s Bush, is established by Samuel Jordan. After a series of attacks from Virginia Indians, Jordan’s Journey becomes a fortified settlement to serve as a place of protection for the different families of settlers in the area.

  • The first breach of promise suit in North America occurs at Jordan’s Journey between the Reverend Greville Pooley and Samuel Jordan’s widow Cecily Jordan.

  • Martin’s Brandon Parish is divided, forming Bristol Parish from City Point all the way up the Appomattox River.

  • Merchant’s Hope Parish is established.

  • Charles City County is divided along the James River by a 1702 act of the General Assembly, creating Prince George County in July of 1703. Charles City is split due to the inconvenience for those on the south side of the river making the water crossing for court. The county is named for Prince George of Denmark, husband of England’s Queen Anne. Prince George County is bounded on the north by the James and Appomattox Rivers, on the east by Surry County, on the south by the eventual surveyed border with North Carolina, and had no western border.

  • Brunswick County is formed from Prince George County, but it is not organized until 1732.

  • Construction on Blandford Church in Petersburg, then a part of Prince George, takes place.

  • Town of Blandford is established in Petersburg.

  • The current house at Brandon Plantation is built by Nathaniel Harrison.

  • First African Baptist Church is founded in Prince George County.

  • In April, Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s royal governor, proclaims freedom for any enslaved people who take up arms against Americans fighting for independence. Many Virginians are enraged by this, viewing the proclamation as subversive. More people in the colony begin to support independence from Great Britain due to Dunmore’s perceived treachery. Richard Bland proposes to hang Lord Dunmore at the Second Continental Congress in July.

  • The Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  • American defenders at Hood’s Battery, later Fort Powhatan, exchange cannon fire with Benedict Arnold’s fleet anchored at Flowerdew Hundred. The British repel the American efforts and continue up the James River to attack Richmond.

  • The Treaty of Paris is signed on September 3, marking the end of the Revolutionary War.

  • Virginia becomes the tenth state to ratify the new United States Constitution on June 25.

  • Edmund Ruffin is born at Evergreen Plantation on January 5.

  • The first county courthouse building at the 1883 Courthouse site is built. Two courthouse structures existed prior in different locations.

  • The Treaty of Ghent is ratified by President Madison on February 18, ending the War of 1812.

  • Upper Brandon is constructed by William Byrd Harrison.

  • An Essay on Calcareous Manures is published by Edmund Ruffin. It helps introduce a strong wave of agricultural reform in the Antebellum South. Ruffin promotes the use of marl, a material rich in calcium carbonate and clays and silts, to help replenish the overworked and depleted soils of the American South.

  • The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed on February 2, ending the Mexican-American War. It is an American victory, with the United States receiving over half of Mexico’s territory.

  • Congress enacts five pieces of legislation, which come to be known as the Compromise of 1850. Three are the most notable: California is admitted as a free state (giving free states more power in Congress), the Fugitive Slave Act is passed to crack down on runaway slaves, and the buying and selling of enslaved people, but not slavery itself, is abolished in Washington D.C. The compromise only delays the onset of conflict between the North and the South.

  • Peter Randolph publishes The Sketch of Slave Life, or, an illustration of the peculiar institution.

  • Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States.

  • Confederate troops fire on the Union-controlled Fort Sumter, marking the beginning of the U.S. Civil War. Though he likely did not, Edmund Ruffin is said to have fired the first shot.

  • Work to construct fortifications around Petersburg begins under the leadership of Captain Charles H. Dimmock. Ten miles of entrenchments, including 55 artillery batteries, surround the city to the east, south, and west. Many of these defenses lie in Prince George County.

  • Soon after crossing to the south side of the James River in June, Grant’s army occupies the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, the City Point Railroad, and the deep-water port at City Point. Grant also establishes his headquarters at Appomattox Manor.

  • The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road occurs from June 21 to June 23. Union forces attempt to increase the size of their siege lines and take vital railroad lines but are ultimately repelled by Confederate resistance. The battle ends inconclusively.

  • The Battle of Fort Stedman occurs on March 25, 1865. It is Robert E. Lee’s last large offensive at Petersburg, but it ends in Union victory.

  • Robert E. Lee surrenders his troops to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, marking the effective end of the U.S. Civil War.

  • Edmund Ruffin declares he cannot live under “Yankee rule,” wraps himself in a Confederate flag, and commits suicide by gunshot on June 18.

  • Pleasant Grove Baptist Church is founded.

  • The building that becomes F.L. Buren Store is constructed by Noel J. Relph, likely as an ordinary.

  • A new light tower and beacon is erected with a new mechanized fog signal at Jordan’s Point.

  • A.B. Temple purchases the Buren’s Store building from Noel Relph and runs his own business until 1927.

  • Morning Star Baptist Church is founded.

  • Begonia Church, possibly the first Slavic church in the South, is built. It is now Bethlehem Congregational Church.

  • The United States defeats Spain, and the Spanish-American War is ended by the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

  • The Great War, now known as World War I, erupts in Europe.

  • Hopewell is incorporated as an independent city on July 1.

  • Just eighteen days after joining World War I, the United States federal government claims 8,900 acres of Prince George County land for a new state mobilization. Construction begins in June, and Camp Lee is designated in July. Named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Camp Lee becomes a large training installation and hub for the United States military.

  • The Prince George County Bank is incorporated with a chartered capital stock of $15,000. It is housed in a front room of the county courthouse.

  • Prince George County public schools have grown from the first school in 1871, with three high schools— Disputanta, Carson, and Hopewell— and 25 one- and two-room schoolhouses.

  • Hopewell annexes City Point.

  • James T. Williams purchases A.B. Temple’s business at the Buren’s Store building.

  • A prison camp is established on 3,000 acres on the northern part of the former Camp Lee.

  • The Prince George County Bank merges with the Bank of Stony Creek and the Bank of Carson to form the Bank of Southside Virginia.

  • World War II starts in Europe with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1.

  • With war raging in Europe, the United States War Department authorizes the construction of a new Camp Lee on the same site as the previous installation in October.

  • Japanese forces launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7. The United States immediately declares war on Japan.

  • War concludes in Europe with Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8.

  • Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II, on September 2. 77 People from Prince George lost their lives throughout the war.

  • Camp Lee is renamed Fort Lee and becomes a permanent installation.

  • Camp Lee is renamed Fort Lee and becomes a permanent installation.

  • “Separate but equal,” and segregation in total, is ruled as unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

  • J.E.J. Moore High School opens as a segregated high school for African American students with Dr. William N. Clayborn as its principal.

  • The General Assembly creates Richard Bland College.

  • Tar Bay, a plantation home at Coggins Point, burns.

  • President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, preventing de jure segregation based on race.

  • First U.S. ground troops arrive in Vietnam on March 8.

  • The Benjamin Harrison Memorial Bridge is dedicated.

  • Linwood Holton is elected Governor of Virginia, the first Republican to be elected to the office since 1869.

  • The last of U.S. troops are withdrawn from Vietnam on March 29.

  • The current Prince George County Courthouse is built.

  • Hurricane Isabel rips through Prince George County, leaving a large trail of damage behind it.

  • The Prince George County Regional Heritage Center opens in the 1883 Courthouse building.

  • Rolls-Royce opens its first manufacturing plant in Virginia on May 2.

  • Fort Lee is renamed to Fort Gregg-Adams after Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams.

Created By

Shane Woods & Ben Dickinson

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