Porto Bello was the hunting lodge of the last Royal Governor of the British Colony of Virginia, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore.

Lord Dunmore fled to Porto Bello to escape the early stages of the American Revolution in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Lord Dunmore, who was a loyalist and sought to end the growing resistance, ordered Lieutenant Henry Collins to take the guns within the Williamsburg Magazine and place them on the British armed schooner Magdalen.

The Virginian populous, angry with the distrust and loyalty of Dunmore, grew to rebellion and Patrick Henry placed a militia outside of Williamsburg on May 2.

[4] Two months later, on July 7, Dunmore returned to Porto Bello, but was quickly chased out by a group of irate citizens from Williamsburg whom he narrowly avoided.

After Lord Dunmore fled, the Virginian authorities rented the land to a Dr. James Carter until 1779 when the county escheator sold it to a man named Francis Bright.

Later, the property was sold to the United States Federal Government in the beginning of World War 2 for the construction of Camp Peary.

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