Mulberry Island

Mulberry Island is located along the James River in the city of Newport News, Virginia, in southeastern Virginia at the confluence of the Warwick River on the Virginia Peninsula. History Mulberry Island, settled shortly after Jamestown, was established a few miles downriver in 1607. It was at Mulberry Island where the colonists who were preparing to leave Virginia during the Starving Time in 1610 were met by Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr with fresh provisions from England. By 1614, thousands of acres were under cultivation with tobacco, the export crop introduced by John Rolfe which saved the Virginia Colony financially. In 1619, Mulberry Island was part of the plantation held by William Pierce, Rolfe's father-in-law. By the end of the century, Edward Digges owned a plantation on the island, and attempted to cultivate silkworms on the native mulberry trees. During the American Civil War, Mulberry Island was the southern end of the Warwick Line, a series of defensive works built across the Virginia Peninsula to Yorktown manned by troops of Confederate General John B. Magruder during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.