Nansemond was first visited by the White Man in 1608 when Captain John
Smith and his followers sailed up the Nansemond River. They found it
inhabited by a large and powerful tribe of Indians who called
themselves the Nansemums. They belonged to the Powhatan Confederacy and
Nasemond River and its branches.
Captain John Smith wrote in his history: "Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation."
The Indian word Nasemum means "fishing point or angle".
About 1630, the land on the Nansemond River began to be patented
and plantations established. Many of the original patents were dated
from 1635, and by 1704 practically all the and in Nasemond had been
patented and was being settled.
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