page_title: Gloucester County, Virginia
section_title: Plantations and historic sites
hierarchical_section_title: Gloucester County, Virginia / History / Plantations and historic sites
caption_attribution_description: English: Mann Page I, Founder of the Present Rosewell Mansion, 1725. Died 24th January, 1730. Aged 39.
context_page_description: Gloucester County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 36,858. Its county seat is Gloucester Courthouse. The county was founded in 1651 in the Virginia Colony and is named for Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester.
  Gloucester County is included in the Virginia Beach–Norfolk–Newport News, VA–NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located at the east end of the lower part of the Middle Peninsula, it is bordered on the south by the York River and the lower Chesapeake Bay on the east. The waterways shaped its development. Gloucester County is about 75 miles east of Virginia's capital, Richmond.
  Werowocomoco, capital of the large and powerful Powhatan Confederacy, was located on this part of the peninsula. In 2003 archeologists established that dense village had been located at this site from AD 1200 to the early 17th century.
  The county was developed by colonists primarily for tobacco plantations, based on the labor of enslaved Africans imported in the slave trade. Tobacco was one of the first commodity crops but fishing also developed as an important industry.
context_section_description: During the 17th and 18th centuries, Gloucester was developed as a major tobacco-producing area; this was the chief commodity crop and the basis of the wealth of major planters. Many of the old plantation houses and private estates have been preserved in good condition. These establishments are periodically open to public visitation during Historic Garden Week. Examples of colonial architecture are the Episcopal churches of Ware (1690) and Abingdon (1755), where Presidents Washington and Jefferson worshiped. Some early colonial buildings at the county seat on Courthouse Green continue to be used for public purposes.
  During the 17th century, the tip of land protruding into the York River was named Tyndall's Point by Robert Tyndall, mapmaker for Captain John Smith. In 1667, colonists built fortifications there, at what was then called Gloucester Point. These defenses were rebuilt and strengthened many times from the colonial period through the American Civil War. This site is also known for the "Second Surrender" by General Charles Lord Cornwallis to General George Washington at Yorktown.
caption: Mann Page I, builder of Rosewell
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