Cultural History

Native people used the area around Parkers Creek for thousands of years before European settlers arrived in the 1600s.  Few artifacts have been found, however, suggesting that native usage was for temporary hunting camps.

Parkers Creek is named for the English settler William Parker, who received a land patent in 1651. By the end of the 1600s, several properties in the neighborhood were in agricultural production. Tobacco was the farmers' cash crop, often grown, harvested, and prepared for market by enslaved African American laborers. After the Civil War, tobacco continued as the area's main "money crop," with many black and white farmers working as tenants, renters, or small-scale farm owners.

ACLT historic sites include a cemetery with burials from the early nineteenth century.  Most of the trust's cultural resources, however, date from the twentieth century, for example, barns and small dwellings, together with remnants of such activities as a pound net fishery at the mouth of the creek.

Note: This page was drafted in 2016. Beginning in 2020, ACLT launched the Parkers Creek Heritage Trail project, which is expanding ACLT's documentation of cultural resources and sites. As the project proceeds, it will support updates to this page and the three pages linked below.

Watershed History -- Cultural Sites -- William Parker: Colonial Settler -- Tobacco Landscape