The Greate Road

The Greate Road, also called the Maine Cart Road and the Great Old Road, connected the isthmus of Jamestown with the mainland between the James and Back Rivers. It began as a path established and used by Native Americans. In May 1607, George Percy followed a pathway he traced for about four miles to a Paspahegh Indian settlement. Colonists soon used the road regularly to move goods between outlying areas and the port of Jamestown, and as tobacco cultivation spread across the mainland it was used extensively for rolling tobacco. As tobacco production increased and the colony expanded, new paths and roads developed and converged on the Greate Road. It eventually extended to Middle Plantation, the settlement that grew into Williamsburg and later became the colonial capital of Virginia and the hub of its colonial road system. By the Civil War, after more than 250 years of continuous use, the Greate Road was abandoned. In the early twentieth century, archaeologists rediscovered sections of this important thoroughfare as deeply rutted road surfaces and flanking ditches, and traces of it are still visible near Glass House Point.

Virginia · United States