Norfolk (recorded in the Domesday Book as Nordfolc) is a county on the east coast of England. The name is old English meaning the northern people, and refers to the territory of the northern people of the East Angles.
Norfolk is a city in Virginia, USA. The city was founded in 1682 (some sources claim 1705) on a site previously occupied by the Chesipean Indians, and became a city in 1845. At the beginning of theAmerican war of Independence, on December the 9th, 1775, a skirmish took place at Norfolk between Virginia sharpshooters and Governor Dunmore, who had erected a fort to guard the southern approach to Norfolk against any chance rebels. After a hot fire of fifteen minutes, in which the Governor's force lost sixty-seven men, the loyalists retired. The Governor sought the fleet and in revenge fired the town with red-hot shot, the town was completely destroyed and later rebuilt starting in 1783. Norfolk was scourged by the yellow fever in 1855. During the early part of the American Civil War Norfolk was the principal naval depot of the Confederacy. The Union troops obtained possession of the city on May the 19th, 1863, and held it for the remainder of the war.
Abbreviations
Gazetteer
Research Norfolk