Discover Our Rich History (to 1820)

The first permanent settlement in the US was started in 1607 in Virginia  - and it has a personal connection

https://theysaw.us/jamestown

Stephen Hopkins leaves England for Virginia on board the Sea Venture and later inspires a character in Shakespeare's Tempest

https://theysaw.us/sea-venture

The adventures continue with a trip across the sea on the Mayflower and its arrival in Massachusetts

Richard and his wife Mary were "Non-Conforming" Protestants, holding with neither the Church of England nor its Puritan wing.

Gideon, 23, Philip, 21, and Francis,19, sailed from their home in Southampton, England;  Francis settled in Amesbury, Massachusetts

 For six generations the records of Amesbury were to carry the dates of the births and marriages of the family of Francis Davis. 

[Gideon was swept overboard, tradition says. And Philip, years before, it is thought, had sailed with his bride to Virginia.] 

Reuben Davis (New Hampshire), Nehemiah Davis (Massachusetts), and Robert Allison (Virginia) served as soldiers for the colonies in the American Revolution

In 1784, the Allisons left Virginia to head 400 miles inland to the banks of the Ohio; in 1798 the Davises left Massachusetts and Maine for a 4000-mile trip by sea and river to Ohio

Fifty miles separated the two families in 1800. By 1805, Nehemiah Davis 2nd and Mary Allison had found each other!

Learn about the civilian stockade built in 1788 as the first organized American settlement in the Northwest Territory.