James River

The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows to the Chesapeake Bay. The river length extends to if the Jackson River is included, the longer of its two headwaters. It is the longest river in Virginia. Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia's first colonial capitals, and Richmond, Virginia's current capital, lie on the James River. History The Native Americans who populated the area east of the Fall Line in the late 16th and early 17th centuries called the James River the Powhatan River, named for the Powhatans who occupied the area. The Jamestown colonists who arrived in 1607 named it "James" after King James I of England as they constructed the first permanent English settlement in the Americas along the banks of the river about upstream from the Chesapeake Bay. The navigable portion of the river was the major highway of colonial Virginia during its first 15 years, facilitating supply ships delivering supplies and more emigrants from England. However, for the first five years, despite hopes of discovering gold ores, these ships sent little of monetary value back to the sponsors. In 1612, businessman John Rolfe successfully cultivated a non-native strain of tobacco which proved popular in England. Soon, the river became the primary means of exporting the large hogsheads of this cash crop from an ever-growing number of plantations with wharfs along its banks. This development made the proprietary efforts of the Virginia Company of London successful financially, spurring even more development, investments and immigration. Below the falls at Richmond, many James River plantations had their own wharves, and additional ports and/or early railheads were located at Warwick, Bermuda Hundred, City Point, Claremont, Scotland, and Smithfield, and, during the 17th century, the capital of the colony at Jamestown.