Editing Northumberland County, Virginia (section)

==History==
The area was occupied at the time of [[Kingdom of England|English]] settlement by the [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]]-speaking historic tribes of the [[Wicocomico]], Chickacoan, and [[Patawomeck]]. The county was created by the [[Virginia General Assembly]] in 1648 during a period of rapid population growth and geographic expansion. Settlement began in this area of the [[Northern Neck]] around 1635. Originally, known as the Indian district ''Chickacoan'', the area was first referred to as Northumberland (a namesake of [[Northumberland]] County, England) in the colonial records in 1644. The following year, [[John Mottrom]] served as the first burgess for the territory in the [[House of Burgesses]], which met at the capital of the [[Virginia Colony]] at [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]]. The county was formed from a part of [[York County, Virginia|York County]]. The land between the [[Potomac River]] and the [[York River, Virginia|York River]] was formed into Northumberland County officially in 1648, prior to the creation of [[Westmoreland County, Virginia|Westmoreland County]] and [[Lancaster County, Virginia|Lancaster County]].<ref>Mason, George Carrington. “The Colonial Churches of Westmoreland and King George Counties, Virginia: Part I.” ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography'', vol. 56, no. 2, 1948, pp. 154–72. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/4245539 JSTOR website] Retrieved August 26, 2023.</ref>

The colonial court ordered the Wicocomico and Chickacoan tribes to merge and by 1655, assigned them a reservation of {{convert|4400|acre|km2}} near Dividing Creek, south of the [[Great Wicomico River]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Rountree |first=Helen |title=Pocahontas's People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia through Four Centuries |publisher=Univ. of Oklahoma Press |year=1996 |isbn=9780806128498 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fUzd7LeJpjYC}}</ref> The Patawomeck Tribe was hunted nearly to extinction in 1666, and survived only by intermarriage.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.doe.virginia.gov/instruction/history/virginias-first-people/today/patawomeck/index.shtml | title=VDOE :: Virginia's First People Past & Present - Patawomeck }}</ref> By the early 1700s, the Wicocomico tribe was greatly reduced, and English colonists took control of their lands. They were believed to be extinct as a tribe as, landless, they disappeared from the historical record. Descendants of the last [[weroance]] are working to regain recognition as a tribe, the Wicocomico Indian Nation.<ref>[http://www.wicocomico-indian-nation.com/pages/history.html Wicocomico History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120423015537/http://www.wicocomico-indian-nation.com/pages/history.html |date=April 23, 2012 }}, Wicocomico Indian Nation</ref> Descendants of the Patawomeck achieved tribal recognition from the state of Virginia in February 2010.
The size of the county was drastically reduced in 1651 and 1653 when the colonial government organized [[Lancaster County, Virginia|Lancaster]] and [[Westmoreland County, Virginia|Westmoreland]] counties from it.

Of the 172 counties that have ever existed in Virginia's history, Northumberland ended up being an "ancestor" to 116 of these—more than the current 95 counties (several were lost to other states, such as [[West Virginia]]).<ref>''A Hornbook of Virginia History'', p. 9.</ref>