Mulberry Island
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Mulberry Island is located along the James River in southeastern Virginia at the confluence of the Warwick River on the Virginia Peninsula.
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[edit] History
Mulberry Island was settled shortly after Jamestown was established upstream a few miles in 1607. It was at Mulberry Island where the colonists preparing to leave Virginia during the Starving Time in 1610 were met by Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr with fresh provisions from England. By 1614, thousands of acres were under cultivation with tobacco, the export crop introduced by John Rolfe which saved the Virginia Colony financially.
During the American Civil War, Mulberry Island was the southern end of the Warwick Line, a series of defensive works built across the Virginia Peninsula to Yorktown manned by troops of Confederate General John B. Magruder during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.
Mulberry Island was always considered a strategic point on the river for military purposes. During the first World War, Camp Abraham Eustis was established on the historic island and adjacent land in Warwick County, upstream from Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. Named for Abraham Eustis, a famous U.S. Army General from Petersburg, the army camp became Fort Eustis and a permanent Army base in 1923.
[edit] Modern times
Fort Eustis is currently is home to the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, and is now located within the corporate limits of the independent city of Newport News. An Army Aviation School is also located there.
An array of ships part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet are anchored adjacent to Mulberry Island in the middle of the James River. Considered an environmental hazard, the numbers of this reserve fleet are being reduced each year as ships are transported away as scrap. These ships are termed the Ghost fleet in local parlance.
