Port Royal Historic District (Additional Documentation)

Port Royal is a small town on the Rappahannock River in Caroline County, Virginia, laid out on a grid of about a dozen blocks with eight principal streets. The Virginia Council established it in 1744, and Richard Taliaferro surveyed the site. Settled largely by Scots, it grew around an older tobacco warehouse and prospered in the eighteenth century through direct tobacco trade with England. Its merchants formed a guild in 1745, one of the earliest chambers of commerce in America. Railroads later drew commerce away, and the town became a quiet residential community. About thirty-five structures of architectural or historic interest remain, nearly all from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. They include Fox's Tavern, the Masonic Hall, the Hipkins-Carr House, the Gray House, and St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The town is valued because it still lies within its original boundaries and keeps its early appearance with few modern intrusions, though several key buildings are vacant or in poor repair.