17th Century Kittiewan Plantation
The Early Years Of European Settlement At Kittiewan
The early land patents show a series of thin strips of land laid out edge on to the watercourses as was the normal practice to provide access to water transport. How many of these strips were actually settled and for how long is not known. The bare bones land tenure outline above is based upon incomplete records. Settlers who received patents were required to "seat" them within 3 years or be subject to forfeit. In the early years, the Algonquian Chiefdom under Powhatan waged a virtually continuous war of attrition to keep the English from encroaching upon their lands. After Powhatan's death in 1618, his brother Opechancanough masterminded two partially successful surprise attacks aimed at driving the English out completely. These were in 1622 and 1644. The 1622 attack was coordinated to start at the same time on the same day throughout the colony in all of its settlements. Nearly a quarter (347) of the English were killed in the surprise attack. The 1644 attack was much the same, but with a little over 500 killed. After this, the English policy was to "harry" the Native Americans out of their territories and in the Tidewater river valleys, Native American attacks largely ceased. The reservation system for Native Americans was set in place that survives in part to this day.
The effect of the first attack on Kittiewan is not specifically known, but the 1623 List of the Living and the Dead showed that in the Weyanoke area, 7 were killed. Whether the survivors stayed to rebuild is not known, but the 1624 Muster Roll shows a vastly contracted settlement set with no identifiable Kittiewan location listed. Nor is the effect upon Kittiewan known of the second attack in 1644. The Native American presence in the James River valley virtually ceased to exist thereafter. English settlements seated land up and down the river, including Kittiewan.
Historically, Kittiewan Plantation represents one of the oldest properties on the James River. The first reference to the land containing the present plantation property dates from 1618, when the Virginia Company gave Captain George Yeardley permission to claim 2,200 acres north of the James River including Weynock and KONWAN between Mapscock (Mapsico) and Queens Creek. Yeardley, however, appears never to have claimed this portion containing Kittiewan.
Land patents in the 1630's also include some part of Kittiewan although platting of the patents in the area is incomplete such that the presumed land boundaries are not yet clear. These patents reach from Weyanoke Point across Kittiewan Creek to Mapsico and Queen's Creeks. Pierce Lennon patented 320 acres between Weyanoke and Mapsico Creek in 1635; and James Merriman and John Merriman also had patents in the vicinity that also have not yet been platted out.
The first mention of any place name resembling "Kittawan" in the land records was in 1655, when David Jones patented 479 acres on the north side of the James River next to Joseph Harwood and another Jones tract to a branch running into Kittawan Creek. Jones owned several tracts of land along the James River, and apparently was the first to patent along the heads of Kittiewan Creek, and may have caused the drainage to finally be named.
In 1667, Charles Roane of Gloucester County obtained a patent for 450 acres, including most of the plantation property (area 13 on the Land Patent map below). The western, southern and southeastern borders for the current property have remained stable since that time. Another patent for 50 acres for marshland is that parcel transferred out of Kittiewan and currently owned by the hunt club that has a small parcel on Kittiewan Creek surrounded by the Kittiewan property where the 1738 Elizabeth Hollingshurst grave is located.
Note that the orientation of the smaller and parallel parcels is with the narrow end to either a road or water frontage such that transportation access was directly available.