Five days before the English colonists tied their ships to the trees on the peninsula where they soon built Jamestown, they had landed across the river in what is now Surry County, near the modern village of Claremont, to visit the headmen of the Quiyoughcohannock Indians. The next year they began keeping their hogs on Hog Island. In 1609, Capt. John Smith directed a group of Jamestown colonists to construct Smith's Fort on Gray's Creek, whose mouth opens into the James River opposite Jamestown. Soon afterward, English colonists established additional settlements across the river on the "Surry Side," which formed part of the Corporation of Jamestown. When colonial authorities divided Virginia into eight shires in 1634, both Jamestown and the area south of the river were placed in James City County. In 1652, the House of Burgesses designated the portion of James City County south of the James River as Surry County.¹

Surry County lies just across the James River from the colonial capitals of Jamestown and Williamsburg, and since its creation the river has formed its northern border. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the James served as Virginia's major thoroughfare, bustling with ships of every kind heading from the Atlantic Ocean upriver to Richmond and other inland settlements. By 1700, vast tobacco plantations checkered the northern swath of Surry County along the river as it winds northwest past the "Surry Side." A high-society plantation culture developed and formed the basis of the region's wealth. A few of the original plantation homes survive to offer a glimpse into life in that era, including Bacon's Castle and Four Mile Tree shown at the top of the page, as well as Smith's Fort and Mount Pleasant Plantation.

The prosperity of the James River tobacco plantations led to the formation of towns near the tobacco warehouses along the river. Cobham, located at the mouth of Gray's Creek, was the primary center of commerce during the 1600s and early 1700s. Over time, repeated tobacco cultivation depleted the soils, making the lands along the river less productive. As a result, the county's commercial and governmental centers moved inland to the village of Cabin Point and the settlement at McIntosh's Cross Roads, later known as Surry Court House.

In the latter seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the volatile tobacco market prompted many tobacco farmers living on the James-York Peninsula and along the lower James River to seek a more stable lifestyle. Many joined the stream of less affluent families moving into the colony's backcountry along the Blackwater Swamp. Far removed from the hustle of tobacco warehouses and high society of Surry's wealthy riverfront plantations, the Blackwater lands were dominated by rich, heavy, moldy soils typical of fertile lowlands. These soils proved ideal for the cultivation of "Indian corn," or maize, wheat, flax, cotton, and other grains, but not tobacco. Itself an important transportation route until the late eighteenth century, the Blackwater Swamp-often called the Blackwater River-parallels the James River to the south. Despite its proximity to the James, the Blackwater does not empty into Chesapeake Bay. Instead, it drains southward into North Carolina's Albemarle Sound, forming a natural gateway between the Chesapeake Bay settlements and the early Albemarle communities of North Carolina.

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This webpage provides biographical information about several early residents whose farms lay along the southern rim of Surry County, Virginia-the stretch of land bordering the north side of the Blackwater Swamp opposite the Dendron Swamp Natural Area Preserve. Since the early twentieth century, the only local community in the area has been the tiny village of Dendron, founded in 1896 as a logging town. For most of the nineteenth century, however, the region's commercial activity centered a few miles away at a place known as "The New Design."

Today, "The New Design" survives among rural Surry County locals merely as a reference to the intersection of Highways 615 (Carsley Road) and 616 (New Design Road) about five miles northwest of Dendron. In the early 1800s, however, "The New Design" was a thriving plantation whose adjoining stores and tavern formed the hub of social and commercial activity for southern Surry County.

Maj. James Kee, a Revolutionary War veteran, Surry County militia officer, and Surry County justice of the peace and sheriff, founded The New Design in 1796-1797 as his new plantation. He chose a prime location at the intersection of the region's main roads-one leading to the commercial center at Cabin Point near the James River, the other to Surry Court House, now the village of Surry. Maj. Kee built several storehouses and a shoeshop, and a tiny village soon formed around The New Design. In 1798, he opened The New Design Tavern, with New York native John Stiles Sr. serving as its first tavernkeeper. For most of the nineteenth century, the tavern served as the only way station for travelers crossing the region. For local residents, it became the primary community gathering place, hosting elections, political meetings, entertainment, and militia musters . The militia company from the surrounding region was known as the "New Design Company." The article below gives details on the history of:

Personal property tax records for Surry County residents provide a glimpse into their standard of living during this era. For tax records of selected residents of southern Surry living in the vicinity of The New Design, see 1782–1827 Tax Abstracts.

Notes:

¹Bohannan, Aurelius Wilson. Old Surry: Thumb-Nail Sketches of Places of Historic Interest in Surry County, Virginia. Petersburg, VA: Plummer Printing Co., 1927.