[2]: 98  These instructions provided for the incorporation of most of the plantations and developments of Virginia into four boroughs or cities that extended across the James River, the main conduit of transportation of the era.

The City of Henrico's major settlement was the fortified town of Henricus, which was founded by Sir Thomas Dale on what is now known as Farrar's Island,[3] near the location of the Dutch Gap Canal today.

Henrico had been founded to eventually replace Jamestown as a healthier and militarily more secure seat of the colony's government.

By 1612, Alexander Whitaker, the "apostle to Virginia" who married John Rolfe and Pocahontas, became Henricus's first minister[4] the surrounding lands were designated for the first English college in North America,.

[1] The northern section incorporated lands around Henricus and Farrar's Island, as well as the settlements of Coxendale, which was on the south bank of the James just east of Farrar's Island,[11] and Arrohattock, which was further upstream from Henricus;[12] South of Farrar's Island, the city included the lands west of Dale's Pale, a defensive work with palisades and a ditch that crossed the neck of the Bermuda Hundred Peninsula from the James river to the falls of the Appomattox River.

All legal issues in the City of Henrico were originally adjudicated by the governor and councillors in Jamestown who served as the Council Court.

[16]: 224  The shire was apportioned lands formerly belonging to Charles City, including Bermuda Hundred and more easterly parts of the northern bank of the James River.