Norfolk, VA news and local guide

In 1775 the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, fled Williamsburg and made Norfolk his capital. Many of its 6,250 residents were Loyalists, since British trade monopolies favored their businesses. After losing the Battle of Great Bridge that December, Dunmore partly destroyed the town with naval guns, and on January 16, 1776, the Patriot Virginia Convention agreed to burn most of the remaining houses so the British could not use it. Only the walls of St. Paul's Episcopal Church survived, and a cannonball fired by HMS Liverpool is still lodged in one of them. The rebuilt town lost about 300 buildings to a waterfront fire in 1804, and a British raid in the War of 1812 failed. Many emigrants to Liberia under the American Colonization Society sailed from Norfolk. Among them was Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a free man of color from Norfolk, who became Liberia's first president. Norfolk was incorporated as a city in 1845. In June 1855 the ship Benjamin Franklin, arriving from the yellow fever-stricken West Indies, was released from quarantine after eleven days. Yellow fever broke out days later, and by August several people were dying each day. Sources Wikipedia: Norfolk, Virginia