Four miles north of here, Governor Sir George Yeardley established Flowerdew Hundred settlement by 1619. In 1621 a windmill was built there, the first one recorded in English North America. In response to English expansion in Powhatan lands, paramount chief Opechancanough planned a coordinated assault on English settlements, and the settlement survived the attack on 22 Mar. 1622 and was inhabited through the 18th century. On 14-16 June 1864, U. S. General Ulysses S. Grant and Major General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac landed there and marched toward Petersburg to attack it.