[1] The Northern Neck encompasses the following Virginia counties: Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond,and Westmoreland;[2] it had a total population of 50,158 as of the 2020 census.

He visited Native American villages, including one near present-day Nomini, which he described and named in later accounts, but found no treasure, only an abundance of fur-bearing animals.

However, on March 22, 1622, Spelman and 19 crewmen were killed in a native village during the widespread massacres on that day, but Fleet was allowed to live as a prisoner until ransomed five years later.

Fleet again returned to England from 1646 until 1648, where he married a much younger woman, then brought her to Virginia, where he patented 1,750 acres of land in what soon officially became vast Lancaster County.

In late 1637 or early 1638, Lord Baltimore's son and heir Cecil Calvert sent his brother Leonard to occupy Kent Island by force, hence the exodus to the Virginia shore.

Although that petition disappeared and presumably was not granted, in 1641 the Virginia General Assembly granted the right to do so "provided that the number that seat there bee not under twoe hundred persons, and not less than six able tithable persons in everye familye that there sitt [sic]" and the following year also gave permission for prospective settlement north of the Rappahannock River while also denying "for divers reasons" the right to occupy the land.

Carter settled on the land several years later, farmed it using enslaved labor and made it his home, creating Corotoman Plantation.

Most early development occurred on the peninsula's eastern end, because both the Potomac and Rappahannock river were navigable waters, and roads were limited and/or in poor condition.

The autonomy and the excellent natural resources allowed rich planters to arise who established tobacco plantations in the Northern Neck.

During the Colonial period, some considered the Northern Neck as the "Athens of the New World" because it had many wealthy landowners who were dedicated to learning, gentlemanly society, and civic duty.

[14][page needed] Later as tobacco cultivation and erosion wore out the soil, and the remainder of the mid-Atlantic states became developed, the Northern Neck's importance declined.

The next year, in 1688, the Northern Neck was the site of another attempted uprising, this one led by "Sam, a Negro Servt to Richard Metcalfe.

[18] Before the era of modern highways, many passenger and freight steamer routes linked the Chesapeake Bay region and connected with the railroads developed after 1830.

Many important historical figures were born on the Northern Neck, including U.S. presidents George Washington (Westmoreland),[19] James Madison (Port Conway in King George),[20] and James Monroe (Westmoreland),[21] as well as signers of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Lightfoot Lee and Richard Henry Lee, and the Confederate Civil War general Robert E.

During the American Civil War, Northern Neck and particularly, King George County were on the frontier between the Union and Confederate armies.

While trying to elude Union cavalry, on April 21, 1865, the co-conspirators John Wilkes Booth and David Herold crossed by rowboat into the Northern Neck in King George County from Maryland after assassinating President Abraham Lincoln.

[26] Booth and Herold landed at the mouth of Gambo Creek before meeting with Confederate agents who guided their passage to Port Conway.

[27] Colonial Beach, a small incorporated town in Westmoreland County located on the Potomac River waterfront, developed as a popular tourist spot for the people of the Washington, D.C. area in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The festival attracts thousands of bluegrass fans every year to celebrate the Northern Neck's musical and historical heritage.

Activities include ghost tours of the Great House, pumpkin painting, various Halloween crafts, picture-taking with Frankenstein and a witch, and an eighteenth-century fortune teller.

Colonial Beach, Westmoreland State Park, Rappahannock River National Wildlife Refuge, and many other locations provide water access for fishing, boating, and yachting.