- Prince George County was established in 1702 and was named in honor of Prince George of Denmark, Husband of England's reigning monarch, Queen Anne. It was formed from Charles City County, one of the original eight shires, and its boundaries stretched from south of the James River down to the North Carolina line.
- Boundary definition of Prince George County was not completed until 1703. This area was one of the earliest settled regions of Virginia. It was first visited by the English in May of 1607, when Captain Christopher Newport
led a crew of twenty-one men in search of the best location for their permanent settlement. As they sailed up the James River to the mouth of the Appomattox River, Newport noted that the area now known as Prince George would be a suitable location for the settlement. When he returned to the anchored fleet, he found that his impatient followers had already unloaded and begun settlement at Jamestown, without waiting for his advice.
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- In 1616, John Martin, one of the men who arrived in 1607, was among the first to receive a permanent land grant in the Prince George area. He was granted Brandon, a vast tract of land along the James River. Martin's Brandon was later sold to three men, one of whom was Richard Quiney whose son Thomas married Judith Shakespeare, daughter of William Shakespeare
. The property later passed to Nathaniel Harrison in 1720. It was at this time that Thomas Jefferson, a good friend of Harrison's son, designed the main part of the house as it stands today. Brandon remained in the Harrison family until 1926 when it passed to Robert Williams Daniel. Brandon's Palladian-style mansion and renowned gardens are home to the Daniel family today, making this state and national landmark which is still an active farming operation the longest continuous agricultural enterprise in the U.S.
- Prince George is also the home of the oldest Episcopalian church still standing and still being used as a house of worship in America. Merchants Hope Church was completed in 1657 and was named after the Merchants Hope Plantation which was located west of Martin's Brandon. Even though the church has undergone renovation and restoration, it is virtually the same structure today as it was when it was built 50 years after Jamestown was settled.
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