June 25, 1788 – Virginia Joins the Union as the 10th State

In 1583, Queen Elizabeth I of England granted Walter Raleigh a charter to establish a colony north of Spanish Florida. The next year, Raleigh sent an expedition to the Atlantic coast of North America. The area was called “Virginia,” most commonly thought to be in honor of Elizabeth’s status as “the Virgin Queen.”

In 1606, the London Company (also known as the Virginia Company) was incorporated as a joint stock company (it also included the Plymouth Company) by King James I of England (who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603) as part of the Charter of 1606. The purpose of the company was to assign land rights to colonists for the express purpose of propagating the Christian religion. The land itself would remain the property of the king, with the London Company and the Plymouth Company as the king’s tenants, and the settlers as subtenants. The company financed the first permanent English settlement in the “New World” in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

Jamestown was intended to be dedicated to silk cultivation. After blight fungus destroyed the mulberry trees (which provided food for silkworms), the colonists switched to tobacco.

Upon the bankruptcy of the London Company in 1624, the settlement was placed under royal authority as an English crown colony.

In 1619, colonists took greater control with an elected legislature called the House of Burgesses. A council chosen by the Virginia Company as advisers to the governor served as the “upper house.” Together, the House of Burgesses and the Council were known as the Virginia General Assembly. On July 30, 1619, the first legislative assembly in the Americas convened for a six-day meeting at the church on Jamestown Island, Virginia, but the meeting was cut short because of an outbreak of malaria.

Nevertheless, the Virginia General Assembly stayed in existence, and is now the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World.

The 1907 Memorial Church on Jamestown Island was built on top of the foundations of the 1617 church in which the General Assembly first met in 1619

Another distinctive aspect of Virginia’s government is that it originally designated “shires.” The eight Shires of Virginia were formed in 1634. These shires were based on a form of local government used in England at the time. As of 2013 six of the original eight Shires of Virginia are considered to be still extant in the Commonwealth of Virginia in essentially their same political form, although some boundaries and several names have changed in the almost 400 years since their creation.

First eight shires created in 1634. Source: Newberry Library, Atlas Of Historical County Boundaries

As colonization continued, Tidewater Virginia became a new home for many of the English upper class. These colonists were staunch royalists and Anglicans, and had a strong belief in their own elitism. For them, liberty meant the freedom to pursue their rich lifestyles. These colonists were predominantly from the south and west of England, from whence came the “southern drawl.”

Slavery first appears most notably in Virginia statutes in 1662, when Virginia adopted the Roman legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem, establishing that the legal status of the mother, not the father, determined the legal status of the child. This ensured that white masters could retain the popular option of using female slaves for sex, as well as retaining the value of “increase” when these female slaves gave birth.

Virginians, instrumental in contributing to the United States Constitution, were the biggest beneficiaries of the “three-fifths” rule of counting slaves for state representation in Congress, which gave Virginia the largest bloc at that time in the House of Representatives.

Notice posted in the Virginia Gazette in 1769 by Virginian Thomas Jefferson, allegedly dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….

Virginia voted to secede from the United States on April 17, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America one week later. Richmond, Virginia was chosen as the capital of the CSA. During the Civil War, more battles were fought in Virginia than any other state.

In particular, Winchester, Virginia and the surrounding areas were the site of numerous battles during the American Civil War, as the Confederate and Union armies strove to control that portion of the Shenandoah Valley. Historians claim that Winchester changed hands as many as 72 times and 13 times in one day! Union General Philip Sheridan and Confederate General Stonewall Jackson located their headquarters just one block apart at times.

Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870.

Eight U.S. Presidents were born in Virginia, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson. In addition, six presidents’ wives came from the state: Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson, Rachel Jackson, Letitia Tyler, Ellen Arthur, and Edith Wilson.

The Pentagon, aerial vieqw

Virginia is also home to the largest low-rise office building in the world, the Pentagon. Built in just 16 months, it boasts nearly 17 and one half miles of corridors, yet due to its unique design, movement between any two opposite points takes as little as seven minutes.

The Pentagon has approximately 23,000 employees, both military and civilian, sixteen parking lots, 131 stairways, 19 escalators, 691 water fountains, 284 rest rooms, 1 dining room, 2 cafeterias, 6 indoor snack bars, and one outdoor snack bar.

As of March, 2017, Virginia also has an Official State Whiskey. George Washington was once the largest whiskey producer in America. Today, George Washington’s Rye Whiskey is made from Washington’s original recipe at Mount Vernon’s reconstructed distillery. The distillery opened in 2007 thanks in part to a $2.1 million grant from Distilled Spirits Council of the United States which allowed Mount Vernon to excavate, research, and reconstruct the site.

The recipe for Washington’s whiskey was discovered by researchers examining the distillery ledgers from 1798 and 1799. His whiskey consisted of 60% rye, 35% corn and 5% malted barley. The records also indicate that George Washington’s whiskey was distilled at least twice before being sent to market. During Washington’s lifetime whiskey was not aged and was sold in its original form.