Suffolk and Nansemond County are steeped in a rich heritage and form an extraordinary locality in southeastern Virginia. With a history dating to pre-colonial times, Nansemond County was formed from one of the original shires established by colonists. Many of the first settlers were attracted to the abundant rivers and woods that offered a grand supply of food and sport. They learned to farm the bountiful land and established the crop that would make them famous. The peanut became the cash crop for Suffolk, and it drew the railroads and businesses needed to sculpt the city into a commercial success. This photographic history pays tribute to a brief but important portion of the people and places that comprised what was known as Nansemond County and is now the City of Suffolk. It provides a visual story of a community that has weathered three major fires as well as the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and both World Wars. These images offer readers the chance to experience the ways in which generations of families have lived, worked, and played, and they portray many of the houses and establishments that have been transformed or are completely gone. Look back to the first Peanut Festival in 1941, see how school children dressed in the 1930s, and view Main Street when it was at its height of popularity.

Originally the parish vestry dealt with land processioning, care of the poor, apprenticeships and guardianships of orphans, levying of taxes, and other civil matters, as well as those relating to the running of the parish. Around 1785 the counties took over these civil functions and placed them under civil authorities.

Inasmuch as Nansemond County's official records were totally destroyed by fires in 1734, 1779, and 1866, the work at hand, originally published in 1963 and itself now quite scarce, represents a valiant effort to reconstruct something of Nansemond's genealogical heritage from the records of its surrounding counties. The core of the book consists of the contents of nearly 100 Bibles arranged alphabetically according to the surname of the book's owner, and, thereunder, in progressions of marriages, births, and deaths. In all, more than 1,000 mostly 18th- and 19th-century inhabitants of Suffolk and Nansemond are here rescued from obscurity and further made accessible in the index to Bible records at the back. Also includes transcriptions of marriage records and several other miscellaneous lists.

This book focuses on slave ownership in Virginia as it was practiced by a variety of institutions.

In this history, Helen C. Roundtree traces events that shaped the lives of the Powhatan Indians of Virginia, from their first encounter with English colonists, in 1607, to their present-day way of life and relationship to the state of Virginia and the federal government. Roundtree’s examination of those four hundred years misses not a beat in the pulse of Powhatan life. Combining meticulous scholarship and sensitivity, the author explores the diversity always found among Powhatan people, and those people’s relationships with the English, the government of the fledgling United States, the Union and the Confederacy, the U.S. Census Bureau, white supremacists, the U.S. Selective Service, and the civil rights movement.