Saved a life here. Born here. Slept here. Spoke here. Ran away from here. Wouldn’t give up her seat here. Wrote here? Walked the woods here

Gloucester and Mathews, nestled at the end of a peninsula of the Chesapeake Bay, have been close to history from the beginning of English settlement in Virginia. Some noteworthy people were born here, and some really famous people have left their mark here.

Saved a life here

Every school child knows about the English colonists that settled at Jamestown, and the famous persons involved in those early years: Pocahontas, Powhatan, and Captain John Smith. It’s likely that all of these people were assembled at Powhatan’s seat of power in present-day Gloucester County when one of the signature lessons of our first history took place.

The storied interaction between John Smith and Pocahontas took place at Werowocomoco, on the north bank of the York River in what is now upper Gloucester. Smith had been captured late in 1607 and taken before Po...