In 1606 a group of English investors formed the Virginia Company in London, to try to establish  a permanent colony in the New World. 1607 the Company landed at present day Cape Henry, Virginia Beach then traveled upriver to establish Jamestown the country's first permanent English settlement. Today you can walk Downtown Norfolk's Cannonball Trail to revisit the historic sites, buildings and museums.

                   

 

Virginia became England's first Royal Colony in 1624, the same year King James I dissolved the bankrupt Virginia Company, he granted Thomas Willoughby 500 acres of land what is now the Ocean View section of Norfolk. 12 years later King Charles I , granted another 200 acres to Willoughby, know today as the present downtown Norfolk.

                                                

 

In 1680 directed by King Charles II "the building of storehouses to recieve imported merchandise....and tobacco for export" began the impotance of Norfolk as a port. In 1682, 50 acres of land along the Elizabeth River were purchased from Mr.Nicholas Wise and the "Towne of Norfolk" was established. By 1775 Norfolk's deep water harbor successfully made Norfolk  the colony's most prosperous town.  In 1754 Lt.Gov. Robert Dinwiddie presented a silver mace to the Norfolk Borough Council on behalf of the crown, a token of England's esteem. The mace is housed in the Chrysler Museum of Art today.

 

                                      

 

In 1775 Norfolk's newspaper was shut down by the British, who seized the presses and placed them aboard ships off of downtown. New Years Day 1776  three English ships under command of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore bombarded the city.  During the three-day siege, cannonballs and fires destroyed most of Norfolk's early structures. Only the walls of  the Borough Church (built 1739) survived. The church, renamed and rebuilt as St. Paul's in 1827, is still in use today where an English cannonball is imbedded in its historic wall. The 19th century began with renewed tension between the United States and Great Britian, culminating in the War of 1812. Fort Norfolk was constructed on the Elizabeth River to protect the harbor, on a site once occupied by a fortification built during the American Revolution.

                                             

 In Dec 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed in Europe, ending the war.

Norfolk was incorporated as a City in 1845 and commissioned a beautiful new city hall to befit its new stature. Completed in 1850, the building housed all City offices until the 1890s and served as a courthouse until the 1960s. It became MacArthur Memorial in 1964, the final resting place of a five-star Army General Douglas A. MacArthur.

                                                

                                                                   

In todays age Norfolk is actively planning its future while not abandoning its past. In the Downtown Historic District, exciting new projects such as a revitalized restaurant and theater district and MacArthur Center Mall live in harmony with such historic treasures as the 1859 U.S. Customhouse and the refurbished Wells Theater.

 

                                 

 

 

 

There are other points of historical interest under the military page, that refers to the Norfolk Naval Base and Elizabeth River.          

 

 

         

 

 

Information provided by www.norfolkcvb.com