Holland, Virginia was an

incorporated town An incorporated town is a town that is a municipal corporation. Canada Incorporated towns are a form of local government in Canada, which is a responsibility of provincial rather than federal government. United States An incorporated town o ...

in the southwestern section of

Nansemond County, Virginia Nansemond is an extinct jurisdiction that was located south of the James River in Virginia Colony and in the Commonwealth of Virginia (after statehood) in the United States, from 1646 until 1974. It was known as Nansemond County until 1972. Fr ...

. Since 1974, it has been a community in the

independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...

Suffolk, Virginia Suffolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. As of 2020, the population was 94,324. It is the List of cities in Virginia, 10th-most populous city in Virginia, the largest city in Virginia by bou ...

following a political consolidation which formed Virginia's largest city in geographic area.

History

Holland was named for an English family headed by Capt. John Holland, who arrived in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

in 1630. A record given in Hotten's List of Persons of Quality, 1600–1700, states John Holland and wife as being sought in Massachusetts in 1627 for taking part in tax protests against the Crowns wishes under Theophilus Clinton, 4th Earl of Lincoln. Holland followed Thomas Dudley as Steward for the Earl, later Governor of Massachusetts. As a ship's captain, he traveled from

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island in the state of Massachusetts in the United States, about south of the Cape Cod peninsula. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck Island, Tuckernuck and Muskeget Island, Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and Co ...

Point to

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

and out to the English-held islands of the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. He died at sea (1652) but is actually buried at Cape Charles, Virginia. His son, John Jr.(mentioned in the Suffolk County Massachusetts wills of 1651, as heir to John Holland seniors' island known as 'Munings Moore'(? migrated to Jamestown around 1645 and was a Major in the Virginia militia in 1654 in Westmoreland County and a member of the

Virginia House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses () was the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly from 1619 to 1776. It existed during the colonial history of the United States in the Colony of Virginia in what was then British America. From 1642 to 1776, the Hou ...

during the 1654/1655 session. He moved the family to Nansemond County. James Holland, grandson of the original land grant holder for the area that later became Holland, Virginia, was still living in Nansemond County in 1680. He is buried somewhere on the grounds of Fighting Cock Plantation in Chuckatuck. Holland is located in what used to be called Old Nansemond County. In 1860, the Holland City Commission was made up of 12 members, 10 of whom were named Holland. Holland became a stop on the Atlantic and Danville Railway in 1890. On May 21, 1928, the first Ruritan Club in the United States was founded in Holland, Virginia.

Consolidation into Suffolk

As part of a wave of consolidations in southeastern Virginia during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, in 1972 Holland merged with Nansemond County and that county's other incorporated town, Whaleyville, to form the independent city of Nansemond. Only two years later, Nansemond merged with the former

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Nansemond County,

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, to form the present-day city of Suffolk.

References

Suffolk, Virginia communities Former municipalities in Virginia Populated places disestablished in 1974 {{SuffolkVA-geo-stub