Populations

The Population of the Eastern Shore In 1623/4 and 1624/5
William Elliott Wilkins, Jr., Ph. D.
vi + 34 pages

The Eastern Shore of Virginia was first settled by Europeans in 1614, when the authorities at Jamestown sent a group of men there to produce salt. This settlement, doubtless of short duration, was probably on the seaside just above Wise Point (Cape Charles, not to be confused with the present town of the same name.)
The first records of the population of the Eastern Shore are in the Census of 1623/4 and the Muster of 1624/5, and it has long puzzled students of the area that the number of reported inhabitants dropped in the space of a year from 76 to 51, or by one-third. It has been surmised that the Eastern Shore, because the Indians there were friendly, became a place of refuge after the Massacre of 1622 and that, when the danger had subsided, the refugees returned to the Western Shore.
Dr. Wilkins’ examination of the population on the Eastern Shore is an interesting one. Using the Census of 1623/4 and the Muster of 1624/5, he provides a possible reason for the drop in reported inhabitants.