John Rolfe - Heritage and Legacy

Heritage and Legacy

• The strain of tobacco cultivated by Rolfe was the export cash crop that helped make the Virginia Colony profitable. It was the mainstay of the farming plantations for generations. Huge warehouses, such as those on Richmond's Tobacco Row, attest to its popularity. Even almost 400 years later, tobacco figures prominently in Virginia's economy.
• In eastern Virginia, State Route 31 is named the John Rolfe Highway. It links Williamsburg with Jamestown, the southern entrance to the Colonial Parkway, and via the Jamestown Ferry leads to the rich farming area of Surry County and Sussex County, ending in Wakefield, Virginia.
• John Rolfe Drive, in the town of Smithfield in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, connects Battery Park Road with Magruder Road, and is named for Rolfe.
• John Rolfe Middle School, in Henrico County, Virginia, one of Virginia's eight original shires of 1634, is named for him. Varina magisterial district in Henrico County is named for Rolfe's Varina Farms plantation, where the tiny village was also the first county seat (from 1634 to 1752).
• The abandoned corridor planned for State Route 288 in western Henrico County became a connector street, rather than a limited-access highway. It was named the John Rolfe Parkway.
• Rolfe, Iowa, in Pocahontas County, Iowa is named for Rolfe.
• Rolfe wrote in 1619 of the incidental introduction of African servants to Virginia from a passing ship, recording that "there came in a Dutch man-of-war that sold us twenty negars" on August 31 of that year.