Place:Chesapeake, Virginia, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Chesapeake is an independent city located in the South Hampton Roads portion of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia in the United States. One of the cities Hampton Roads, Chesapeake was formed in 1963 by a political consolidation of the city of South Norfolk with the former Norfolk County, which dated to 1691. Chesapeake is the second-largest city by land area in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Chesapeake is a diverse city with few urban areas as well as many square miles of protected farmland, forests, and wetlands, including a substantial portion of the Great Dismal Swamp. Extending all the way from the rural border with North Carolina to the harbor area of Hampton Roads adjacent to the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Chesapeake is located on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and has miles of waterfront industrial, commercial and residential property.

It is currently the third largest city in Virginia in terms of population. According to the 2010 Census, its population is 222,209. In 2011, Chesapeake was named the 21st best city in America by Bloomberg Businessweek.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

In 1963, the new independent city of Chesapeake was created when the former independent city of South Norfolk consolidated with Norfolk County. The consolidation, authorized by the Virginia General Assembly, was approved and the new name selected by the voters of each communities by referendum.

Formed in 1691 in the Virginia Colony, Norfolk County had originally included essentially all the area which became the towns and later cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and South Norfolk, but had seen its area frequently reduced as these cities added territory through annexations after 1871. Becoming an independent city was a method for the former county to stabilize borders with neighbors, as cities could not annex territory from each other.

The relatively small city of South Norfolk had become an incorporated town within Norfolk County in 1919, and became an independent city in 1922. It was also motivated to make a change which would put it on a more equal footing in other aspects with the much larger cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth. By the late 1950s, although immune from annexation by the bigger cities, the most recent suit by the city of Norfolk against Norfolk County would have taken all of the county land adjoining South Norfolk.

The changes which created Chesapeake were part of a wave of changes in the structure of local government in southeastern Virginia which took place between 1952 and 1975.

The Chesapeake region has roots extending back to Virginia's colonial past. Along Chesapeake's segment of the Intracoastal Waterway, where the Great Bridge locks mark the transition between the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River and the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal, lies the site of the Battle of Great Bridge. Fought on December 9, 1775, in the early days of the American Revolutionary War, the battle resulted in the removal of Lord Dunmore and all vestiges of English Government from the Colony and Dominion of Virginia.

Until the late 1980s and early 1990s, much of Chesapeake was either suburban or rural, serving as a bedroom community of the adjacent cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach with residents commuting to these locations. Beginning in the late 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, however, Chesapeake saw significant growth, attracting numerous and significant industries and businesses of its own. This explosive growth quickly led to strains on the municipal infrastructure, ranging from intrusion of saltwater into the city's water supply to congested roads and schools.

Chesapeake made national headlines in 2003 when, under a court-ordered change of venue, the community hosted the first trial of convicted murderer Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo for one of the 2002 terrorist-style attacks. A jury spared him a potential death sentence, choosing a sentence of "life in prison without parole" instead for the young man, who was 17 years old at the time of the crime spree. A jury in neighboring Virginia Beach sentenced his older partner John Allen Muhammad to death for another of the attacks.

See article Beltway sniper attacks

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