In 1607, James I of EnglandJames I granted a British colonization of the Americasroyal charter to the Virginia Company of London to settle colonists in North America. After the first permanent English peopleEnglish settlement was established later that year at Jamestown, VirginiaJamestown, Christopher NewportCaptain Christopher Newport and John Smith of JamestownCaptain John Smith set sail ten days after landing at Jamestown, traveling northwest up Powhatan's River (now known as the James River (Virginia)James River) to Powhatan Hill. The first expedition consisted of 120 men from Jamestown, and made the first attempt to settle at the Falls of the James, located between the 14th Street Bridge in modern downtown Richmond and the Pony Pasture (a recreational area along the banks of the river south of the City of Richmond). The settlement was made at this location as it is the highest navigable site along the James River. In 1673, William Byrd I was granted lands on the James River that included the area around Falls that would become Richmond and already included small settlements. Byrd became a well-connected fur trader in the area and established a fort on the site. William Byrd II inherited his father's land in 1704 and in 1737 he founded the town of Richmond at the Falls of the James and commissioned Major William Mayo to lay out the original town grid. Byrd named the city Richmond after the town of Richmond or Richmond-upon-Thames in England, a suburb of London. He gave the new town the name because the view of the James River in Richmond, Virginia is strikingly similar to the view of the Thames River from Richmond, England, where he had spent time during his youth. The new town became the seat of Henrico County in 1752 which had been located in nearby Varina (now a Richmond suburb) where John Rolfe and Pocahontas had established their farm the previous century and developed the new world's first commercially successful export product, tobacco. Also Richmond has had sucessful processing in worlds iron factories especially the iron factory controled by Parker Skoonover. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond%2C_Virginia