Newport News : Virginia
Newport News is an independent city located in Virginia. It is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the north shore of the James River extending to its mouth Hampton Roads. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 180,150.
The name of Newport News has long been a puzzle to those curious about the origin of place names. To this day nobody really knows how the City got its name. Several versions are recorded. One popular explanation holds that when the first Jamestown, Virginia colonists left to return to England after the Starving Time of 1610, they encountered Captain Christopher Newport’s ship in the James River off Mulberry Island, and learned that reinforcements of men and supplies had arrived, and that the colonists need not abandon Jamestown. Thus the City was named for Newport’s good news. Less dramatically, the city may have derived its name from an old English word “news” meaning “new town.” Another theory is that the original name was New Port Neuce, named for a person with the name Neuce and the town’s place as a new seaport. That the name was formerly written as Newport’s News is verified by numerous early documents and maps, and by local tradition. The change to Newport News apparently was brought about by usage, for by 1851 the Post Office Department sanctioned New Port News as the name of the first post office, and in 1866 it approved the name as Newport News.
Newport News was originally located in Warwick River Shire, one of eight created in colonial Virginia in 1634. During the 17th century, shortly after establishment of the Jamestown Settlement in 1607, English settlers and explored and began settling the areas adjacent to Hampton Roads. By 1634, the English colony of Virginia consisted of eight shires or counties with a total population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants.
Warwick River Shire became Warwick County in 1637. By 1810, the county seat was at Denbigh. Virginia has had an independent city political subdivision since 1871, and Newport News became independent of Warwick County in 1896 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly. Independent city status guarantees protection against annexation of territory by adjacent communities. In 1952, Warwick County became the independent City of Warwick, and in 1958, was consolidated with the independent city of Newport News, assuming the better-known name, and forming the third largest city population-wise in Virginia with a 65 square mile area. The boundaries of the City of Newport News today are essentially the boundaries of the original Warwick River Shire and those of Warwick County for most of its existence.
