Elizabeth Tayloe, Col. Nathaniel Bacon 1640-1692 Mrs. Abigail Burwell March 1692 – October 1692 Lewis Burwell, Jr. October 1692 – September 1696 Lewis Burwell September 1696 – December 1710 James Burwell December 1710 – October 1718 Nathaniel Bacon Burwell October 1718 – May 1746 James Burwell May 1746 – September 1775 Nathaniel Burwell September 1775 – April 1790 John Tayloe Corbin April 1790 – 1794 Gawin Lane Corbin 1794-1821 Dr. Richard Randolph Corbin 1821-183 ? 183*-before 1914 Dupont Family before 1914-1914 U.S. Government about 1914-1917 U.S. Navy after 1917 1800 to 1850s 1850s to 1900 In April 1862 all of Yorktown, including this site, was caught under a thirty-day siege which included the largest concentration of artillery in one place at one time in history. This was during the Seven Days Battles or more correctly referred to as the Peninsula Campaign. This was the unsuccessful attempt by McClellan to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond and end the war. 1900 to 1942 The area land was used primarily for farming until World War I when the E.I. Dupont Company built a large powder and shell-loading plant. The Dupont plant loaded explosives into large-caliber shell. Founded during the early 1900s the town was named Penniman, in honor of Russell S. Penniman, inventor of ammonia dynamite. Penniman, Virginia, eventually grew to a city of over 15,000 residents. During World War I, prior to Navy ownership and activity, a portion of the current Navy property was the location of a large powder and shell-loading plant, the duPont de Nemours Company's U.S. Penniman shell-loading plant. The Penniman shell-loading plant operated under contract to the U.S. government loading shells from 1917 to 1918. The facility consisted of approximately 3,300 acres and included what is now the Cheatham Annex, the United States Department on the Interior National Park Service (National Colonial Park), and the Virginia Department of Emergency Services fuel farm (no longer active). During this time the area included a city of 10,000 people and was named Penniman. The Penniman shell-loading plant, which was a large powder- and shell-loading facility operated during World War I. The Penniman facility closed in 1918. By May 1919, less than 100 people remained in the city of Penniman and by 1920 the land had reverted to farmland. Following the end of World War I in 1918, through 1926, the U.S. government operated the Penniman General Ordnance Depot to prepare