By 1619, the Virginia Company of London had granted Sir George Yeardley a 1,000 acre tract 25 miles upriver from Jamestown. At that point of land, previously cleared by American Indians, Yeardley established a plantation and named it Flowerdew Hundred in honor of his wife's family. The settlement at Flowerdew Hundred was organized for the production and exportation of tobacco.

17^th Century: Virginia Frontier

An Indian uprising in March 1622 devastated most of the English settlements in the tidewater area; however, Flowerdew Hundred was well defended and only six people were recorded killed. By 1624, this thriving plantation supported a population of sixty people who raised livestock and produced corn and a yearly tobacco crop of about 10,000 pounds. As the threat of Indian attack lessened, people moved away from the river and settled inland.

Increased political and economic stability encouraged a greater diversity in housing. No longer was the single-room wattle and daub dwelling dominant. Following the sale of the plantation in 1624 to Abraham Peirsey, ranked the second wealthiest man in Virginia, the merchant-planter constructed a hall and parlor house, the earliest example of permanent architecture in the English colonies. By 1673, the original Flowerdew Hundred tract was divided into two separate properties.