Peleg Bucke

http://www.realhornsby.com/neckoland.htm On July 30, 1619, the members of America's "first legislative assembly" met in the church at Jamestown to discuss laws for the colony. The Reverend Richard Buck opened that meeting with a prayer. After the meeting, he likely stepped out into the sunlight on that brilliant Tuesday in the Virginia Tidewater, climbed into a bateau, and crossed the Back River, returning to his property in the "Neck-O-Land", 750 valuable waterfront acres along Powhatan Creek.

A few years later, the venerable minister and his wife perished, leaving four children in the care of Richard Kingsmill of Archers Hope. "The settlers inhabiting Archers Hope lived between College Creek and the corporation of James City glebe, which abutted east upon Mill Creek and west upon the Neck Lands (Neck- O- Land) directly behind Jamestown Island. During the mid-1620's Archers Hope, which had a population of approximately 16 men, women, and children, took on an air of permanency. In February 1625, eleven people were residing in five households in the Neck O Land behind Jamestown Island.

Only Richard Kingsmill was credited with buildings, which raises the possibility that the inhabitants of the Neck O Land had drawn together for safety and mutual support. As Kingsmill was guardian of the late Rev. Richard Buck's minor children who inherited acreage in the Neck O Land, he apparently decided to occupy the Buck patent to preserve the orphans claim...and moved to their property in the Neck O Land, just across the Back River from his Jamestown Island home.

All quotes taken from James City County, Keystone of the Commonwealth, by Martha W. McCartney, Donning Publishers, 1997.

Additional Reading

http://www.preservationvirginia.org/rediscovery/pdf/buckweb.pdf. The report of the APVA on the excavation of Neck-O-Land, the land grant of Rev. Bucke.