Sewells Point is a peninsula of land in the independent city of Norfolk, Virginia in the United States, located at the mouth of the salt-water port of Hampton Roads.

Sewells Point is bordered by water on three sides, with Willoughby Bay to the north, Hampton Roads to the west, and the Lafayette River to the south.

The second church to be located in the area now known as South Hampton Roads (the first being St Lukes in Smithfield), it stood somewhere within the present western limits of the US Naval Station Norfolk.

[citation needed] Sewells Point is an area of land, most notable because of its prominence along the eastern shore of the harbor of Hampton Roads.

The listing of political entities which have constituted the local government at Sewells Point is complex, but typical of many communities in the state of Virginia dating back to the colonial period.

During the 17th century, shortly after establishment of Jamestown in 1607, English settlers and explorers began settling the areas adjacent to Hampton Roads.

At one time, apparently since English settlement began at Jamestown in 1607, Willoughby Bay did not border Sewells Point to the north, since it didn't even exist yet.

According to local legend, his wife awoke one morning following a terrific storm (possibly the "Harry Cane" of 1667) to see a point of land in front her home, where there had been only water the night before.

A few weeks later that spring, US General-in-Chief Winfield Scott proposed to President Lincoln a plan to bring the states back into the Union: cut the Confederacy off from the rest of the world instead of attacking its army in Virginia.

The Union dispatched a fleet to Hampton Roads to enforce the blockade, and on May 18–19 Federal gunboats exchanged fire with the batteries at Sewells Point, resulting in little damage to either side.

On May 18, 1861, Norfolk-area and Georgia Confederate troops began erecting land batteries at Sewells Point opposite Fort Monroe on Hampton Roads.

The bombardment from these two vessels caused momentary confusion in the breastworks, but once the Confederates had recovered from the initial shock, immediate preparations were made to return the fire from their two 32-pounders and the two rifled guns already in position.

A long-range rifled Sawyer gun of 24-pounder bore, firing 42-pound projectiles, was mounted at Fort Calhoun and shelled Sewells Point circa August 1861.

On May 5, 1862, President Lincoln, with his Cabinet Secretaries Stanton and Chase on board, proceeded to Hampton Roads on steamer Miami to personally direct the stalled Peninsular Campaign.

On May 8, 1862, Monitor, Dacotah, Naugatuck, Seminole, and Susquehanna by direction of the President "-shelled Confederate batteries at Sewells Point, Virginia, as Flag Officer L. M. Goldsborough reported, "mainly with the view of ascertaining the practicability of landing a body of troops thereabouts" to move on Norfolk.

It was planned that when the Virginia came out, as she had on the 7th, the Union fleet would retire with the Monitor in the rear hoping to draw the powerful but under-engined warship into deep water where she might be rammed by high speed steamers.

When he found the works abandoned, President Lincoln ordered Major General Wool's troops to march on Norfolk, where they arrived late on the afternoon of the 10th.

On May 10, 1862, Norfolk Navy Yard was set afire before being evacuated by Confederate forces in a general withdrawal up the peninsula to defend Richmond.

While the bigger railroads which were busy developing nearby areas and shipping coal via rail to Hampton Roads, he formed a plan.

As Page developed his Deepwater Railway, he ran into a wall in negotiating to make connections and share favorable rates with either of the larger railroads.

They were unaware that one of Page's investors, who were silent partners in the venture, was financier and industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers, a millionaire who had made his initial fortune as one of the key men with the Standard Oil Trust.

The new line essentially followed the valley of the Roanoke River through the Blue Ridge Mountains, and then was to run almost due east to the Hampton Roads area.

To facilitate building of the new railroad, Norfolk provided a right-of-way extending virtually completely around the city to reach Sewells Point.

This proved just in time to serve the Jamestown Exposition, which was held on land just north of the VGN coal pier site at Sewells Point, which opened in the spring of 1907.

He toured the railway's new $2.5 million coal pier at Sewells Point and Mark Twain spoke at a grand Norfolk banquet.

When the VGN was merged with the Norfolk & Western in 1959, civilian coal loading was shifted to Lambert's Point, and the Navy purchased the site a few years later.

The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities had gotten the ball rolling in 1900 by calling for a celebration honoring the establishment of the first permanent English colony in the New World at Jamestown, to be held on the 300th anniversary.

Norfolk is today the center of the most populous portion of Virginia, and every historical, business and sentimental reason can be adduced in favor of the celebration taking place here rather than in Richmond."

The Dispatch was an unrelenting champion of Norfolk as the site for the exposition, noting in subsequent editorials that "Richmond has absolutely no claim to the celebration except her location on the James River."

Twain's humorous talk was partly an introduction of Rear Admiral Purnell F. Harrington, former Commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard.