Gravesend was granted, allowing the men of the town to operate boats between London and the town; these became known as the "Long Ferry". It became the preferred form of passage, because of the perils of road travel (see below). On Gravesend's river front are the remains of a Tudor fort built by command of King Henry VIII in 1543. On 21 March 1617, John Rolfe and Rebecca (aka Princess Pocahontas) with their two-year-old son, Thomas, boarded a ship in London bound for the Commonwealth of Virginia; the ship had only sailed as far as Gravesend before Rebecca fell fatally ill,
Gravesend, Brooklyn of salt marsh wetlands and sandhill dunes along the shore of Gravesend Bay. The Town of Gravesend was annexed by the City of Brooklyn in 1894. The derivation of the name "Gravesend" is unclear. Because of the association with Lady Moody, some speculate that it was named after the English seaport of Gravesend, Kent. But an alternative explanation suggests that it was named by the Dutch governor general Willem Kieft for the Dutch settlement of " 's'Gravesande" in the Netherlands, which means "Count's Beach" or "Count's Sand". There is also a town in the Netherlands called 's-Gravenzande. The modern neighborhood