The "Citie of Henricus", also known as Henricopolis or Henrico Town, was a city founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1611 as an alternative to the swampy and dangerous area around Jamestown Settlement, Virginia. It was named for Prince Henry, the eldest son of King James I.
Henricus was the second successful English city in the New World and was located on the James River, just a few miles southeast of the modern city of Richmond, Virginia, but at the time, one of the westernmost outlying developments from the Colony of Virginia's fortified capital at Jamestown.
This city is near where Pocahontas grew up among the Appomattoc tribe, where she converted to Christianity, and where she and John Rolfe fell in love, and married in 1614, living together across the river at the Varina Farms Plantation. There, a son, Thomas Rolfe, named after Sir Thomas Dale, the Virginia Colony Governor, was born to the couple.
The early 17th century settlers in the young colony tried to start what would have been the first institution of higher education in the British colonies. In 1618 a royal charter was obtained for founding the University of Henrico, and in the following years land was set aside for its use. But nothing more than a school for the Native Americans in the United States had actually come into existence by 1622, when the town, and much of the entire English settlement effort was destroyed in the Indian Massacre of 1622 on Good Friday. Recovering by 1623, the English had more settlers on the college land than before the Massacre. The next year, however, King James crushed the Virginia Company and its college at Henricus, seizing its assets and turning it into a Royal Colony.
For a full-scale educational system, Virginia had to wait until after the English Civil War was resolved in the bloodless Glorious Revolution which saw King William and Queen Mary crowned in 1689 as joint regents of England. Soon, in 1693 for the College of William and Mary was established, which today has a plaque on the Wren Building crediting its origin as "the college proposed at Henrico".
The site of Henricus later became part of the Shire of Henrico (1634), later renamed Henrico County, (1637). It was included in the area south of the James River subdivided in 1749 to form Chesterfield County.
Over time, even the exact location was lost. However, in the late 20th century, the site was rediscovered and has been partially restored. Henricus Historical Park is located within the 810-acre Dutch Gap Conservation Area, portions of which were the site both of major Revolutionary and of American Civil War actions.
Henricus Colledge (1619) has been revived for "American Heritage Research and Continuing Education".[1]
External links
- henricus.org: Pre-1611 History
- virginia.org: Henricus Historical Park
- Henrico Citizen:Uncovering Henricus
Further reading
- David A. Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of A New Nation, Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
- Philip A. Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (Volumes I and II), Kessinger Publishing, 2006
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