When bargaining with Necotowance Captain Fleet had been authorized to build a fort on the Rappahannock, "an important station."
Fleet remained in the region of the Potomac long enough to see the first settlers come to the Northern Neck. He was their friend and interpreter and helped them with their Indian troubles.
In July, 1639, owing to the increase of population in Bermuda, the Proprietors of the Island, in London, petitioned for the region "scituate betwixt the two Rivers of Rapahanock, and Patowmack wch by good Informacon your petit'iors finde to be both healthful and otherwise--not yet Inhabited." (Lefroy's _Bermudas_, Vol. I, p. 558.)
The first settlers did not come to the Northern Neck from the direction of Jamestown, which would have been the natural direction. Nor did they come for the natural reason--new lands.
Instead, they came from north of the Potomac. In order to understand the reason for the migration of these pioneers from the north side of the Potomac to its south side, it is necessary to go back a few years and study the situation in the upper Chesapeake Bay region.
Before 1640 the activity of white men in the Chesapeake Bay centered about a trading post at Kent Island, situated far up the Bay. The trade there was with the Indian tribes in "fur, skins and Indian baskets."
Captain Henry Fleet, William Claiborne, a Virginian, and Lord Baltimore and his brother were chief among those who were making history in this region at that time.
Claiborne and a number of Virginians had established a colony on Kent Island under a charter secured before Lord Baltimore had settled his colony on the north side of the Potomac in a region that he called Maryland.
When Lord Baltimore was granted a charter to settle in this area, his charter included Kent Island. The charter, however, had said that he should have authority only over uninhabited lands.
Claiborne considered that Kent Island was inhabited and was not, therefore, a part of Maryland.
In 1634, the second Lord Baltimore sent about one hundred settlers, under the leadership of his brother, Leonard Calvert, to a point of land across the Potomac from the Northern Neck, and a settlement was established there, known as the "Citie of St. Mary's."