Five days before English colonists tied their ships to the trees on the peninsula where they soon built Jamestown, they landed across the river in present-day Surry County. Near the modern village of Claremont, they met with the headmen of the Quiyoughcohannock Indians. By the next year, settlers were keeping livestock on Hog Island. In 1609, Capt. John Smith ordered the construction of Smith's Fort on Gray's Creek, directly across from Jamestown. This "Surry Side" became an early extension of the Corporation of Jamestown. While the 1634 division of Virginia placed both sides of the river within James City County, the House of Burgesses designated the southern portion as Surry County in 1652.¹

From its earliest years, Surry County’s identity was shaped by its position along the James River just across from the colonial capitals of Jamestown and Williamsburg. 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 original plantation homes survive, offering a glimpse of life in that era, including Bacon's Castle and Four Mile Tree, 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. Some joined the stream of less affluent families moving into the colony's backcountry along the Blackwater Swamp. Far removed from the bustle of tobacco warehouses and the high society of Surry's wealthy riverfront plantations, the Blackwater lands were dominated by rich, heavy, loamy 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. This geographic divide yielded two distinct cultures within Surry County—one shaped by the James River’s plantation economy, the other by the self‑sufficient backcountry along the Blackwater.

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This webpage presents biographical sketches of 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 today's Dendron Swamp Natural Area Preserve. Since the early twentieth century, the only 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, commercial life centered a few miles away at a place known as "The New Design."

Today, "The New Design" is remembered locally as the name of the crossroads at 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 commercial and social hub of southern Surry County.

Maj. James Kee—a Revolutionary War veteran, militia officer, and 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 two major 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 shoe shop, 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 region's only way station for travelers. For local residents, it became the community's primary gathering place, hosting elections, political meetings, entertainment, and militia musters. The local militia company that drilled there was known as the "New Design Company." This article provides an in-depth history of this site and its inhabitants:

The table below gives detailed biographies of some of the residents who lived in the region surrounding The New Design:

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 these 1782–1827 Tax Abstracts.

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