Smith's Hundred or Smythe's Hundred was a colonial English settlement in the
Province of Virginia, in the modern United States of America. It was one of the original
James River plantations named after the treasurer of the Virginia Company, Sir Thomas Smith. It was settled by the English in 1617 and after 1620, was known as Southampton Hundred in honor of the Earl of Southampton.
The site was originally home to a village of the
Paspahegh Indians. They were located along the north bank of James River.
Smith's Hundred was located eight miles above the English fort at
Jamestown and extended from Weyanoke Hundred to the south bank of
Chickahominy River
The Chickahominy is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 river in the eastern portion of the U.S. state of Virginia. The river, which serves as the eastern bo ...
on the north bank of James River. The settlement was abandoned after the
Powhatan Uprising of 1622.
The area is now called Sandy Point in
Charles City County, Virginia.
The first General Assembly (which became the
House of Burgesses) in 1619 included two representatives for Smythe's Hundred Plantation:
Captain Thomas Graves and
Walter Shelley.
Communion silver
St. Mary's Church was established in Smith's Hundred in 1618 in part with £200 bequeathed by Mrs. Mary Robinson, of
St. Olave Parish in London, to educate the "poore(sic) people" (i.e.
Powhatan Indians) in Christianity.
Along with others who contributed to the church was an unknown person who gave a set of Communion Silver (
Hallmark: London 1617/1618).
When the church was abandoned during the Uprising of 1622, the communion silver was taken to Jamestown. It was held by
Sir George Yeardley, Governor of the
Colony of Virginia
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colonial empire, English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertG ...
.
After his death, the Jamestown court in 1628 had
William Claiborne, la