Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 10.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[498] give them. Suffice it to say, that the name Newport's News, as in Rolfe's list, does not appear among them. This shows that Newport's News was not inhabited by white people as late as July, 1619. And doubtless the place remained unoccupied until Gookin and his company were seated there in November, 1621.

Mr. Secretary, if the Public Authorities of a newly founded Colony in any part of the world, who were present at the foundation of it and at the naming of public places in it, did not know the names of such places, or, if they knew them, did not know how those names were spelled; but, if knowing the spelling, did not leave a record of those names for the guidance of posterity, then most certainly no person of subsequent generations could possibly know the ancient and correct mode of spelling those names; and if we are unwilling to accept the orthography of the first settlers, especially as given in official documents by educated men, we might as well give up our quest in despair, and accept any mode of spelling the names that any person of the present day may fancifully suggest.

Let us now see how the name of the point of land on which Gookin was settled, was spelled in official documents during the first generation of the Colony.

We have already seen in this paper that the Colonial Authorities, in their letter of January 20th, 1622, spelled the name as Newport's News.

At page 293, of Neill's History, begins a letter from the Governor and Council of Virginia, written in April, 1622, to the Company in London, giving an account of the great massacre that occurred in March of that year. While stating in that letter that after the massacre “Wee have thought most fitt to hold those few places,” which they proceed to specify by name, they mention as one of those places “Newport's News.”

At page 313, of Neill's History, is an account of certain proceedings of a Quarterly Court of the Company in London, held July 3d, 1622, relating to certain land in the Colony formerly belonging to “Mrs. Mary Tue.”

The record says: “Which land was for their servants psonall [personal] adventures, and lyes at Newport's Newes.”

In a memorandum of the same date, and in the same Quarterly Court, it is stated that the quantity of land referred to is “one hundred and fifty acres,” and was the “land she assigned over to Mr. Daniell Gookin.”

[The ancient records abound with instances where the common noun