Battle of Yorktown

13. The Commons

Yorktown, VA

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In 1691, the Virginia General Assembly established the Towne of Yorke, or Yorktown, as a port town. Lawrence Smith surveyed the area in August of that year. Benjamin Read and his wife Lucy owned the property, and they conveyed the title to Ring and Ballard, the city trustees. The land on the hill was subdivided into 85 half-acre lots, but the waterfront property at the bottom of the hill was not part of the original survey and was not considered part of the town. This five-acre strip of waterfront property was about half a mile long, which was approximately the length of the new town. The Assembly designated the waterfront as a common area that could be used by local residents. In 1692 Captain Thomas Mountfort surveyed the waterfront to ensure that there were piers, wharves, landings and ferry sites so that goods and people could safely arrive on shore. By 1752, the Yorktown port ranked third, just behind Port Hampton and the Upper James River, in the number of vessels it accommodated each year. Yorktown was a thriving port city before the war, but by 1790 it was only about a third of the size it had been before the Revolution. In 1814, a devastating fire burned through much of the Common and Great Valley areas. A little construction took place around 1821, but by 1834, the town only claimed 282 year-round residents. Richard Randolph attempted to turn Yorktown into a summer resort. In 1837 he petitioned the General Assembly to finance "an extensive Hotel and bathery establishment, for the accommodation of the Publick, during the summer." Despite this, Yorktown continued its slow decline, and by 1880 it only had 250 residents. A severe hurricane in 1933 wrecked most of what little construction remained along the beach. Most of what currently exists was built after this period. Cornwallis's Cave and the reconstructed Archer House are the only two colonial-era features that still exist along the waterfront of this once bustling city.