March History in Beautiful Virginia

The old saying “March Roars in like a Lion it will go out like a Lamb”, was an old wives saying my grandparents use to say all the time. Well, this started my thinking about the historic events that happened in the month of March here in Virginia, which I found really interesting.

1607 – The Jamestown Colony is established by the Virginia Company.

1608  – “repairing our Pallizadoes” John Smith

1613 – Pocahontas is captured and held for ransom. She would later marry Englishman Thomas Rolfe.

1614 – John Rolfe and Robert Sparkes travel up the Pamunkey River with Pocohontas, who has been held captive at Jamestown for almost a year. Powhatan negotiates a truce.

1622- Powhatan Indians attack settlements immediately outside Jamestown, killing 347 men, women, and children. A Pamunkey Indian, Chanco, indirectly warns Governor Wyatt and Jamestown mounts a successful defense. Charles City, the Ironworks, College Land, and Martin’s Hundred are all abandoned after the massacre because many are concerned about the vulnerability of isolated settlements. The “Massacre of 1622” is followed in December by an epidemic brought by the ship Abigail. It kills twice as many people as died in the Massacre and the colony’s population is reduced to about five hundred.

1624 – Virginia becomes a royal colony.

1652 – Representatives of the new Parliamentary government in England arrive in Jamestown to establish their authority over the colony. Governor Berkeley offers the colony’s submission. For the next eight years, the Virginia General Assembly dominates colonial government.

1676 – Bacon’s Rebellion occurs and the city of Jamestown is burned.

1698 – Williamsburg becomes the capital.

1765 – Patrick Henry speaks out against the Stamp Act. 1776 – Thomas Jefferson from Virginia writes the Declaration of Independence.

1775 – Patrick Henry delivers his famous speech “Give me liberty or give me death” at Henrico Parish, now named St. John’s Church, in Richmond.

1781 – The British are defeated at the Battle of Yorktown and the fighting in the Revolutionary War comes to an end. 1788 – Virginia becomes the 10th state.

1789 – Virginian George Washington is elected the first President of the United States.

1791 – President George Washington issues a proclamation to establish a permanent seat for the U.S. government on the Potomac River, on land ceded by both Virginia and Maryland. The nation’s new capital site is called the District of Columbia.

1801 – Thomas Jefferson is elected the third President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson lives in Virginia.

1849 – Henry “Box” Brown makes a sensational escape from slavery by having himself shipped in a crate from Richmond to Philadelphia. He made the twenty-seven-hour journey to freedom crammed into a box measuring 3 x 2 ½ x 2 feet.

1851 – James Madison is born near Port Conway in King George County. Madison served as the fourth president of the United States and was the primary author of the U.S. Constitution.

1856 – In response to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, 101 southern members of Congress draft the Declaration of Constitutional Principles, popularly known as the “Southern Manifesto,” pledging to “use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.”

1859 – Abolitionist John Brown leads a raid on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry hoping to arm the slaves in a revolt.

1861 – Virginia secedes from the Union and joins the Confederate States and the Civil War begins. 1863 – West Virginia breaks away from Virginia and forms its own state.

1862 – The first battle of ironclad ships takes place in the waterways of Hampton Roads when the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (Merrimac) engage in a five-hour fight that ends in a draw.

1863  – Raid on Kelly’s Ford……Mosby raids Catlett’s Station

1865 – Robert E. Lee surrenders to the Union Army at Appomattox signaling the end of the Civil War.

1870 – Virginia is readmitted to the Union.

1901 – Fire levels much of the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond. It is not fully refurbished until 1907

1943 – The Pentagon building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, is opened in Arlington.

1963 -Noted country music vocalist and Virginia native, Patsy Cline, dies in an airplane crash in Tennessee. She is buried at Shenandoah Memorial Park in Winchester.

1970 – Secretariat, future triple-crown winning racehorse, is born at Meadow Stable near Doswell, Virginia.