Urbanna, Virginia
The Chesapeake Bay was formed during the last Ice Age when the Susquehanna River roared through a deep gorge to meet rising sea levels to the south. Native Americans began hunting, farming and fishing along the shores of its tributaries around 1,000 BC.
It was the Nimcocks who first settled what would come to be known as Urbanna. Nimcock means “Indians who live in towns.” The Nimcocks lived in huts in fenced villages designed to thwart attack.
Jamestown was established a few millennia later in 1607. Captain John Smith set out from there to explore the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which he called “a place where heaven and earth never agreed better to frame man's habitation.”
The first “come heres” soon followed him.