What's in a name? | Constant's Wharf in Suffolk

Stand on the banks of the Nansemond River near Constant's Wharf Park and Marina and - if the tide is right - pieces of the area's history will emerge.

On either side of the Main Street bridge, historian Sue Woodward said, passers-by can spot pilings from what's left of Suffolk's first and most important trading post - Constant's warehouse and wharf.

John Constant, rumored to be the area's first English settler, created the wharf sometime in the 1720s after he settled in the area with his family, Woodward said.

Little is known about Constant, Woodward said, but without him the city might have ceased to exist. Before Suffolk adopted its current moniker in 1742, the settlement was called Constant's Wharf or Constant's Warehouse, she said.

"The extensive commercial business brought to the area and to the Constant family logically led to the county's petition of the colonial legislature in Williamsburg to establish a town there," authors Kermit Hobbs and William Paquette wrote in their book "Suffolk: A Pictorial History."

Constant created his wharf at a time when southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina were struggling to get to a reliable port, Woodward said.

The wharf became an important hub for trading products like tobacco, corn, gin, wine and lumber, according to Hobbs and Paquette's book. The water traffic even led to a modest shipbuilding industry, they wrote.

In the early 19th century, Suffolk was also the second most popular port for shipments of Philadelphia furniture, Woodward said.

Wooden shingles, transported from the Great Dismal Swamp to the wharf via the aptly named Shingle Creek, were another popular commodity to leave Suffolk, she said. In 1815, about 3,600 shingles were picked up from the docks.

Long after Constant's family left the area - probably to North Carolina, Woodward said - locals have sought ways to recognize his influence.

Today, Constant's Wharf Park and Marina is a popular site to spread out a blanket and take in a concert.

Unfortunately, Woodward said, another tribute went awry.

In the 1950s, officials tried to solve growing traffic problems by building a major artery through town, she said. The street would be named after Constant.

Constance - not Constant's - Road was created. The typo was too troublesome and costly to fix, Woodward said, so the blunder became a permanent city fixture.

"It's misspelled for all of eternity now," she said.