Isle of Wight County, Virginia: History
In the 17th century, shortly after establishment of the settlement at Jamestown in 1607, English settlers explored and began settling the areas adjacent to the large Hampton Roads waterway. Captain John Smith crossed the James River in 1608 and obtained fourteen bushels of corn from the Native American inhabitants, the Warrosquyoack or Warraskoyak. They were a tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy, who had three villages in the area of modern Smithfield.
Before 1619, Ensign Thomas Washer, Captain Nathaniel Basse and Giles Jones received patents for land along the Pagan River. Captain Christopher Lawne settled near the mouth of Lawne's Creek in the same vicinity. Although the area was known as Captain Lawne's Plantation and its representatives were listed as representatives from the plantation, the colonists also had named the area "Warresqueak County" after the Native American tribe who lived there. This name went through transliteration and Anglicization, eventually becoming known as "Warwicke Squeake". Washer and Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation in the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619. Edward Bennett also settled on the south shore of the presently-day Isle of Wight in 1621. Several members of the Puritan Bennett family also settled nearby, including Edward's nephew, Richard Bennett. He led the Puritans to neighboring Nansemond in 1635, and later was appointed as Governor of Virginia.
English colonists drove the Warraskoyak from their villages in 1622 and 1627, as part of their reprisals for the Great Massacre of 1622, in which the Native Americans had decimated English settlements, hoping to drive them out of their territory.
By 1634, the entire Colony consisted of eight shires or counties with a total population of about 5,000 inhabitants. In 1620, a movement began to change the name of "Warresqueak County" to "Isle of Wight County", after the island off the south coast of England; this was done in 1637.
On October 20, 1673, the "Grand Assembly" at Jamestown authorized both Isle of Wight County and Lower Norfolk County to construct a fort.
St. Luke's Church, built in the 17th century, is Virginia's oldest church building. In the late 20th century, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in recognition of its significance. Many landmark and contributing structures on the National Register are in Smithfield including the Wentworth-Grinnan House.
In 1732 a considerable portion of the northwestern part of the original shire was added to Brunswick County, and in 1748 the entire county of Southampton was carved out of it.
In the American Civil War, Company F of the 61st Virginia Infantry Regiment of the Confederate Army was called the "Isle of Wight Avengers."