An Act of the General Assembly in 1692, appointed certain places as ports of entry for collection of custom, and at which public warehouses for the storing of tobacco were ordered to be erected. Two shillings per hogshead was the duty, so the act reads.

"For Isle of Wight county, at the mouth of Pagan Creek, formerly laid out for a town, by the name of Pates Field; and paid for, and houses built upon it."

     This settlement has become the thriving hamlet of Battery Park, with a population of about two hundred, three-fourths of whom are engaged in the oyster business. The steamers plying from Smithfield to Norfolk and Newport News land at its wharf four times a day, carrying much freight, especially shad for the Northern markets in the early spring.

     It has three general stores, three marine railways, two blacksmith shops, one oyster packing house, one Baptist church, one school house, postoffice, several builders of small boats, who have recently turned out some very speedy craft, and its inhabitants are the owners of some six hundred acres of oyster planting grounds, and it also has two daily mails.

     The village Zuni lies on the Norfolk & Western Railroad, seven miles west of Windsor and on Blackwater River, the dividing line between this and Southampton county. It has three general stores, one blacksmith shop, one livery stable, one hotel, and, in recent years, has become to be a very fine peanut market, made so by the hustle of its business men, often rivaling Smithfield in prices. It has a large territory from which to draw trade, which is thickly settled and in a very high state of cultivation. There are four passenger trains daily stopping at this point.

     There are twenty-two other post offices in the county other than the towns and villages heretofore named, each having one, and some two, daily mails. These offices are generally located at some general store and conveniently situated.