In 1714, at Governor Alexander Spotswood’s urging, the Virginia General Assembly funded the Virginia Indian Company to build a fort on the Meherrin River in what would become Brunswick County. The fort was intended to give local settlers a trading base and protection from Indian attacks, while a nearby Indian village was funded to shelter and protect displaced Native Americans, mostly of Sapony tribes. Believing Indian children should be educated to prepare them to be future citizens, Spotswood hired North Carolina’s Reverend Charles Griffin as a teacher at the fort and paid him 50 pounds a year from his own money. Griffin taught as many as 77 Native-American children at one time in English, reading, writing, and math, and students were also required to read the Bible and Common Prayers. After the General Assembly withdrew financial support, private investors sustained the fort for a time, but it was no longer manned after 1724. In 1730, the land was parceled out to its investors and Fort Christanna was largely forgotten. In 1924, the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Virginia acquired 10 acres where the fort had stood and attention returned to the site. Recent archaeological excavations have located the perimeter of the original fort, and efforts continue to learn more about this early Brunswick County site.