Reedville Historic District

Reedville is a small maritime village on a half-mile peninsula in Northumberland County, Virginia, surrounded on three sides by Cockrell Creek. Founded in the 1870s, it grew from the menhaden fishing industry that Captain Elijah Reed brought south from New England. He opened the first factory on the point in 1875, and fifteen factories were working by 1885. The district holds seventy-eight structures, mostly late 19th- and early 20th-century frame houses with deep front porches. A few modest 1870s dwellings follow New England patterns. Among the larger buildings are the Queen Anne George Reed House and Albert Morris House, the brick mansion known as The Gables, and a row of five large houses called Millionaires Row. Bethany Methodist Church, the Masonic Hall and the 1910 People's Bank add public and commercial character. A 1925 fire destroyed the old waterfront factories, and later industrial buildings stand in their place. The district is notable for showing the wealth the fishing trade created.