History of The Peleg’s Point Area:
Archaeologists from the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), excavated an archaeological site within what is now the Peleg’s Point neighborhood in James City County VA during the summers of 1996 and 1997.
Excavations undertaken under the then future location of Flowerdew Court and Deliverance Drive revealed significant insights into the daily lives of those residing at Neck-of- Land, one of the leading Jamestown suburbs during the second quarter of the 17th century
Archaeologists named the site after the area’s first documented land owner, the Reverend Richard Buck, who served as the minister at Jamestown from 1610 to 1624. The Buck site, located in James City County, Virginia, on a parcel known as Neck-of-Land in the Peleg’s Point residential subdivision, is approximately one mile north of Jamestown Island.
The artifacts recovered from the site indicated it was occupied from ca. 1630-50. Historical records included details of Richard Buck’s 1619 patent on 750 acres of land at Neck-of-Land, bounded by Mill Creek on the east, Back River on the south, and Powhatan Creek on the west. It is unlikely that the Reverend himself lived at Neck-of-Land, residing instead at Jamestown. Upon Buck’s death in 1624, the property passed into the hands of a caretaker and guardian of his children, Richard Kingsmill. In 1635, Thomas Crump, husband of Richard Buck’s eldest daughter Elizabeth, acquired the 500 acres directly to the north of the original 750-acre Buck land patent. Buck’s eldest son Gercian attained his majority in the early 1630s, and in 1636 purchased the 500 acres from his brother-in-law, Thomas. Through this acquisition and the inheritance of his father’s Neck-of-Land property, Gercian amassed a contiguous 1,250-acre tract of land. Two years later, the youngest Buck sibling, Peleg, inherited the entire property upon Gercian’s death. Peleg held the land until his own demise in 1642, whereupon Elizabeth Crump assumed ownership until 1654
During the dig archaeological crews located and excavated a total of 53 features at the site. These included three barrel lined wells, nine human burials, four small outbuildings, two pits, a series of ditches and fence lines, and additional miscellaneous soil discolorations and anomalies. The site yielded more than 12,000 artifacts, consisting primarily of pottery, case-bottle glass, clay tobacco pipe stems and bowls, nails and other iron objects, and faunal remains. Analysis of the findings suggested that the site served as a farmstead for a series of occupants. The artifact collection and archaeological context offered insights into the outfitting and operation of one of Virginia’s earliest attempts at settling Jamestown’s hinterland.
Peleg Buck (1625-42) Namesake for Peleg’s Point
Little is known about Peleg Buck’s tenure on the 1,250 acres of land that Gercian gave to him. The youngest of the Buck children, 18-year old Peleg inherited the land in 1638, from his recently deceased older brother . A 1642 dispute brought to Court over the Buck Neck-of-Land holdings demonstrated that Peleg, like his brother, had only a few years to work the land before he died at the age of 22
Thanks:
Many individuals contributed to the excavations at Peleg’s Point. Nicholas Luccketti, Director of Field Projects for the APVA’s Jamestown Rediscovery project, and William Kelso, Director of the APVA’s Jamestown Rediscovery project were instrumental in procuring funding for the excavation and directing the subsequent work. Without their guidance, little would have been learned from the Buck site.
Mill Creek Landing Associates, the owners and developers of Peleg’s Point sub-division, provided site archaeologists with two essential elements— money and time. They generously funded portions of the archaeological testing and excavation, and conscientiously avoided impacting the site during initial stages of development. In particular, Lewis Waltrip and his associates Richard Abbitt and Larry Cooke, went out of their way to assist the archaeologists. Mr. Waltrip provided heavy equipment and skilled operators free of charge whenever asked. Without the machinery, only a fraction of the work at the Buck site would have been completed. Under no legal obligation to conduct archaeological research, Mill Creek Landing Associates set an example of custodial conduct and preservation. David Hazzard, Supervisor of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources Threatened Sites Program, allocated timely funds for the project in 1996 that also made excavation possible. In addition, he offered many valuable archaeological insights during the writing of this report.
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