The Virginia General Assembly approved SJ 25, a resolution sponsored by Senator Richard Stuart that formally recognizes the historic Wiccocomico Pinn lineage of Northumberland County.

Stuart’s resolution makes significant acknowledgments about the history of the Wiccocomico people, their descendants, and the impacts they endured as a result of colonization. It affirms the documented continuity of Wiccocomico descendant families and the longstanding presence of the Wiccocomico and other Indigenous peoples along the lower Northern Neck prior to English settlement.

Detailing their history, the resolution notes that the Wiccocomico historically occupied lands along the north bank of Dividing Creek in what is now Northumberland County. Their presence was recorded in early English colonial accounts, including those of Captain John Smith and William Strachey, secretary of the Virginia colony.

The resolution further acknowledges that colonial governance and treaty agreements under Governor William Berkeley shaped the reservation era and influenced the legal status of Virginia Indians, including the Wiccocomico.

It highlights the continued leadership of Wiccocomico figures— specifically Pinn, Taptico, and Conchinchimo—at the close of the seventeenth century. Court and county records identify Robert Pinn as the only formally recognized King and Weroance (chief) of the Wiccocomico Indian Town. The resolution also recognizes that Robert Pinn, previously acknowledged by the General Assembly, was subjected to racial reclassification in official records as a means of taxation and dispossession.

Tracing generational continuity, the measure cites members of the Pinn family—including Rawley Pinn, Howison Pinn, and Traverse Benjamin Pinn Sr., who served as a Union Army scout and wagoner during the Civil War. It also acknowledges that the Wiccocomico maintained continuity through interconnected families such as the Evans and Pinn families before they, too, were reclassified.

SJ 25 recognizes the Pinn Cemetery in Northumberland County as an ancestral burial ground and tangible evidence of the historic Indian Town. It further notes a range of descendant surnames documented in historical records, including Pinn, Evans, Tapp/Taptico, Nickens, Doggett, Veazey, Curtis, Jett, Wood, Mason, Scott, Brown, Brooks, Dennis, Cross, Bowlin, Page, Bourne, Goolsby, Bayse, Baskett, Pettus, Johnson, and King.

The resolution also acknowledges the work of descendant Gail Janeen Smith Toliver, recognized as the ceremonial historical Weroance of continuity for the Wiccocomico Pinn lineage. Toliver is commended for more than 25 years of research, documentation, and preservation of this history.

Upon receiving the governor’s signature, the resolution directs that copies be sent to historical and archival institutions to support efforts to document, preserve, and advance formal recognition of Wiccocomico descendants.