Historical & Background Items of Interest

Before the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century, the area was populated by Native Americans. Among these were the Monacan tribe, of a Siouan heritage. They were often in conflict with the members of the Powhatan Confederacy of Virginia Algonquins, generally located to the east in the Tidewater area.
Around the turn of the 18th century, a group of French Huguenot refugees fleeing religious persecution arrived. As the tobacco plantations were dependent upon shipping, the area above the head of navigation at the fall line of the James River had not yet been settled. They settled in the area west of what became Richmond, choosing Manakintown, a former Monacan village located near present-day State Route 288 and State Route 711.
In May 1777, the Virginia General Assembly created Powhatan County out of land from the eastern portion of Cumberland County between the Appomattox and James Rivers. The County was named in honor of Chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas. It is an irony that the county was named after the former enemies of the area's Native Americans, although by then, it was at a time when both the Monacans and the Powhatan were no longer major forces, each decimated by European settlers.
The original courthouse was constructed in 1778 and the immediate area was named "Scottville" after General Charles Scott, a revolutionary war hero, who was later a governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky after it was formed in 1792 as a separate state from land ceded by Virginia. The courthouse area later became known as Powhatan, Virginia.

The Hornbook of Virginia History

Parishes: King William (also Chesterfield Co.), Saint James Southam

Virginia, A Guide to the Old Dominion