Adam Thoroughgood

Adam Thoroughgood (1604 – 1640) was a colonist and community leader in the Virginia Colony who helped settle the area of South Hampton Roads known in contemporary times as the independent city of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Young Thoroughgood was from a prominent family in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England. At the age of 18, he became an indentured servant to pay for passage to the Virginia Colony, a project of the Virginia Company of London at the time. Around 1622, he settled in an area south of the Chesapeake Bay and a few miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. This area had been passed by when the earlier settlements such as Jamestown where established beginning in 1607 in favour of locations further inland which would be less susceptible to attacks by other European forces, such as the Spanish.

Serving his period of indenture, he earned his freedom and became a leading citizen of the area. He was elected to the House of Burgesses and the Governor's Council, and as a Justice of the Court. He also became a Captain in the local militia.

The London Company lost its franchise and Virginia became a royal colony in 1624. In 1634, the Colony was divided into shires, soon renamed counties, a term still in use in Virginia 350 years later. He is credited using the name of his home in England when helping name New Norfolk County when it was formed from Elizabeth City County in 1637. From New Norfolk County, there were several additional smaller entities formed including most notable Norfolk County, which existed from 1691 to 1963 and is now the City of Chesapeake and most famously the town which became the modern City of Norfolk.

Despite his widespread and long-lasting influence in South Hampton Roads, his choice of residence was along the Lynnhaven River, also named for his home in England. In 1635, he earned a land patent for over 5,000 acres (20 km²) in this area for having persuaded 105 new residents to settle in Virginia, including Augustine Warner, a progenitor of Virginians George Washington and Robert E. Lee.

Thoroughgood appears to have had the foresight to realizing earlier than many other leaders that Lower Norfolk County (which encompassed the modern cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach) was too large for a single site for convenient worship and court affairs. He led the effort to establish a second parish church, court, and glebe house at what was then known as Churches Point on the Lynnhaven River in the eastern portion in what was later subdivided to form Princess Anne County in 1691 (and the present City of Virginia Beach in 1963).

Thoroughgood suddenly became ill and died at the age of only 36 in 1640. This was no doubt a great loss to his community and the colony. However, the story of his life is prominently known in today’s Virginia Beach, where the Adam Thoroughgood House is now an historic museum.