What's in a name? | Bennetts Pasture Road, Suffolk

The history of Bennetts Pasture Road, which runs between Nansemond Parkway and U.S. 17, is a long idyllic stretch that hails back to Richard Bennett, the "first father" of Nansemond County. Four hundred years ago, Bennett owned everything in proximity to the road that would be named for him - 2,000 acres.

He was granted the land for "importing" 40 settlers.

In 1652, he became Virginia's first governor under the Puritan Commonwealth.

As far as the "pasture" component, former Suffolk Mayor J.W. Melms Jr. said: "It wasn't nothing but farms the whole way."

Melms grew up off nearby Sleepy Hole Road, where he learned to drive on a dirt lane in a Model T with no tires, just rims.

When he got a car with tires, a '29 Chevrolet, one of the first roads he traversed was Bennetts Pasture Road.

At that time, Bennetts Pasture wound from U.S. 17 to its terminus at Sleepy Hole Road and Driver Lane. About 40 years ago, road crews plowed through swamplands to link Bennetts Pasture to Nansemond Parkway.

One longtime resident, John Matthews III, recalls the road's sleepy past.

"I remember when you could go down Bennetts Pasture Road, lay down and take a nap," said Matthews, 73. "Not a car would come by and bother you."

Matthews himself is no stranger to road naming. He used to live on an unnamed Suffolk street when a town employee ran into him and asked him what he thought the street should be called.

"Why don't you name it Matthews Lane?" suggested Matthews. Good enough.

The Matthews Lane street sign has long since been relegated to the scrap pile, a casualty of the sweeping Harbour View development.

But Bennetts Pasture Road persists, with a great many changes. Today, the road, 55 mph in stretches, is rife with subdivisions. There haven't been any Bennetts for as long as Matthews and Melms can remember, save for a pastor who moved to the area from North Carolina.

"There was a time when I walked this road to go to the grocery store in Driver," said Melms, 81, who's lived on Bennetts Pasture Road for 53 years. "I've seen a lot of changes."

John Warren, (757) 221-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com