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

In either event the existence of this minute disposes effectually of Mr. Grigsby's dream of Newport's being “at last settled in his quiet home” at Newport's News.

It is highly probable that Newport and Sir Wm. Newce were never personally acquainted with each other. Newport was a seafaring man sailing out of England, and was never in the Colony after 1611, and we have no record of his ever having visited Ireland while Sir William Neuse was “a planter in Ireland” before going to Virginia [Neill], and he did not visit that Colony until the autumn of 1621, when he went out as Marshal, “but died two days after reading his patent and commission” in public--[Stith, p. 159]. The Colonial Authorities, in a letter to the Company in London, dated 20th January, 1622, announce, among other things, the death of “Sir William Nuce,” who, they say, “did not, above two days, survive his reading of his Patent.” --[Neill, p. 363.]

As the performance of that ceremony usually took place (for obvious reasons) within a very short period after the advent into his field of official action of a public functionary, it is highly probable that Sir William died before he had been five weeks in Virginia. [Neill says that he died “in a few days” after his arrival in the Colony.] This fact effectually disposes of Mr. Grigsby's dream of Newport's retirement in 1621 from active life to his “quiet home” on his Virginia plantation, of his hobnobbing in that year with Sir William Neuse in the Colony, and of his then naming the eastern promontory at the mouth of James river Newport-Newce, in commemoration of Sir William and himself.

Mr. Grigsby was most evidently misled by the historian, Beverly, whose History of Virginia appeared in 1705. Mr. Grigsby says, that of all writers on the history of Virginia, Beverly “alone alludes to” the “origin” of the name. He quotes Beverly as saying: “It was in October, 1621, that Sir Francis Wyatt arrived Governor, and in November Captain Newport arrived with fifty men imported at his own charge, besides passengers, and made a plantation on Newport's News, naming it after himself.” Mr. Grigsby then dwells on “the important fact” “that Newport named the place after himself,” meaning, of course, that he (Newport) named it in November, 1621.

But Mr. Grigsby's authority, (Beverly,) while against his theory so far as the word Newce is concerned, (for Beverly writes it News, and puts Newport's name in the possessive case,) was utterly in error of the grossest kind when, through what was no doubt a lapsus memoriae, he substituted Newport for Gookin, as having arrived and settled at Newport's News in 1621.