Peninsula In Passage

In 1742 the General Assembly moved the seat of government for Nansemond County to the new Suffolk Town site twenty miles up the Nansemond River and Town Point reverted to farmland. An archaeological survey team working in the 1980s on the site for Bennetts Creek Landing unearthed the bricks from what appeared at first to be a large warehouse. Archaeologist Nick Luccketti feels that the foundation was too far from the water to be a warehouse and was more probably the home of a very wealthy planter. Artifacts of ceramics and other items from the 17th century indicate that this may have been the site of Richard Bennett’s home. The WB insignia on a wine bottle fragment could have been the seal of William Berkeley governor of Virginia

Plantations to Revolution Town Point

Several different families owned Town Point over the last 300 years but it was continuously a viable working farm until the mid-late 20th century. Detailed historical records of the area are sparse because Nansemond County court records were destroyed in three separate fires, the earliest of which consumed the house of the court clerk in April 1734 (where the records were kept at that time), and the last on February 7, 1866. In the 1800s Town Point was owned by Thomas Pitt, Joseph Mansfield and Patrick Henry Lee. In 1869, Willis J. Lee, P.H. Lee’s son, combined it with his “Creek Farm” to develop a productive truck farm. “Town Point Farm” stenciled on a package of truck was known in the northern markets to mean quality and often his produce was sold before it arrived at the docks. Lee also owned and operated a fleet of vessels in the oyster business and when that season was over, his vessels were busy “running truck” to Norfolk. The Mansion on Town Point Willis John Lee and Mary Jennet Jones Lee, in 1895, built one of the first country homes in the county to have all of the modern conveniences. It was also the largest residence of its time in the county. Even though they had no children of their own, the house overflowed with nieces and nephews for years. The Lees built a schoolhouse on the property for the children in the vicinity and even provided the teacher. from These Twain by W.E. McClenny

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