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,
George Rolfe George Rolfe Hon. George Rolfe (1808 – 18 December 1871) M.L.C., was a merchant and politician in the Colony of Victoria (a state of Australia since 1901). Rolfe was born in Tenterden, Kent in 1808 where his father was a prosperous landholder. He became a merchant in London, and after that business failed, he emigrated to South Australia in 1848, and arrived in Adelaide on 24 June 1849 and started a partnership in land real estate with P. D. Prankerd, dissolved May 1851. He moved to Victoria, arriving in May 1854. Rolfe was the founder of one of the leading