Middle Plantation was renamed Williamsburg in 1699 after the College of William and Mary was established nearby and the capital of the colony was relocated there from Jamestown.
[1] Rich Neck Plantation was home to a number of noted Virginians, including three of seventeenth-century Virginia's big-name secretaries of the colony: Richard Kemp, Sir Thomas Lunsford, Thomas Ludwell, and brother Philip Ludwell, as well as dozens of slaves and servants.
[2] Later, Rich Neck became the home of Reverend Doctor James Blair, who in 1693 became the founder and first president of the College of William and Mary.
Williamsburg's Holly Hills subdivision now occupies a portion of the former Rich Neck Plantation property west of College Creek.
Extensive archaeological work has been done on portions of the Rich Neck Plantation site by groups from the College of William and Mary, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Commonwealth of Virginia.