The Mariners' Lake is a
reservoir
A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.
Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
which was created as part of the natural park on the grounds of the
Mariners' Museum and Park located in the independent city of
Newport News in the
Hampton Roads region of southeastern
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 ...
. The area was previously known as before it was dammed around 1930, and Lake Maury from 1930 to 2020.
The area originally appeared in colonial Virginia history as a 100-acre land grant from governor
Sir Francis Wyatt to Edward Waters in 1624, located between a creek and
Blunt Poynt. The creek would carry Waters' name until it was dammed to create a reservoir in 1930.
obtained a 1300 acre tract of land around the creek in 1652.
The creek supported a series of gristmill operations from as early as the seventeenth century, including
Causey's Mill built in 1866).
in 1675, the Langhorne family would acquire the land, build a home called 'Gambell', and grow their holdings in the area over several generations.
On March 8 1781, the area near the mouth of the creek would be the site of a
revolutionary war skirmish between American and British troops. In 1815 John Mallicote would acquire the property. In 1845, John Gambol would purchase the property.
The Langhorne, Mallicote, and Gambol surnames are associated with the history of
Warwick County, Virginia.
In 1930, the land would be purchased by
Archer Milton Huntington and his wife
Anna Hyatt Huntington. Archer was son of
Collis P. Huntington, a railroad builder who brought the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway to
Warwick County, Virginia, and who founded the City of Newport News, its
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
export facilities, and
Newport News Shipbuilding in the late 19th century.
After the Huntington acquisition took place, the first two years were devoted to creating and improving a natural park and constructing a dam to create a lake that the Board of Trustees named Lake Maury after the nineteenth-century Virginian Commodore and eventual confederate commander
Matthew Fontaine Maury, who was nicknamed the "Father of Modern Oceanography". Archer and his wife would use the acquired to develop a museum and park that would come to hold 61,000 square feet (5,700 m
2) of exhibition galleries, a research library, a 167-acre (676,000 m
2) lake, a five-mile (8 km) shoreline trail with fourteen bridges, and over 35,000 maritime artifacts from around the globe.
On , during the
George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the mu ...
, as references to Confederate figures were being
removed from names, The Mariners' Museum's board of trustees voted to rename the lake from "Lake Maury" to The Mariners' Lake.
See also
*
Skirmish at Waters Creek, a March 8, 1781 revolutionary war skirmish that took place here
*
Causey's Mill, a historic mill built in 1866 in this area
*
Statue of Leif Erikson (Reykjavík), statue visible from the lake and surrounding trail
References
External links
15 Slideshow images of Lake MauryThe Mariners' Museum
Maury
Bodies of water of Newport News, Virginia
Parks in Newport News, Virginia
Matthew Fontaine Maury
Name changes due to the George Floyd protests
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