Tappahannock is the oldest town in Essex County, Virginia, United States. The population was 2,375 at the 2010 census, up from 2,068 at the 2000 census. Located upon the Rappahannock River, Tappahannock is the county chair of Essex County. Its state comes from an Algonquian language word lappihanne (also noted as toppehannock), meaning “Town upon the rise and fall of water” or “where the tide ebbs and flows.” The Rappahannock is a tidal estuary from above this narrowing and downriver to its mouth upon Chesapeake Bay.

In 1608 English speculator John Smith landed in Tappahannock and fought behind the local Rappahannock tribe. After defeating them, he future made peace.

In the mid 1660s, Captain Richard Hobbs had rights to 800 acres south of Gilson’s Creek at the Rappahannock River. In 1680, Virginia do its stuff required warehouses to be acknowledged in harbor towns, and that year surveyor George Morris created a survey showing Hobb His Hole Harbour . Hole means where a boat could Fall anchor in a deep part of the water, and correspondingly it was Capt. Hobbs who parked his ship “Elizabeth and Mary” here in the vicinity of present-day Tappahannock. This area became known as “Hobbs Hole”.

The agreement was platted for 50 acres (20 ha), divided into half-acre squares. The harbor was time-honored at Hobbs Hole and called “New Plymouth”, later changed back up to the Native American name “Tappahannock”. As ration of the Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730, public warehouses for inspection and exportation of tobacco, the colony’s commodity crop, were time-honored at Hobbs Hole. Ocean-going ships could achieve this port.