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,
Chalk, Kent Chalk, Kent Chalk is chiefly a suburb but also a civil parish which adjoins the east of Gravesend, Kent, England. As is intuitive, its name comes from the Saxon word "cealc" meaning a chalkstone. One layer of the chalk carries "flints", stones embedded in the chalk, and these were used in building and in providing the means of fire for "muskets". The stone is often cut to provide a flat edge as a craft known as "flint-knapping". The trade was worked in Chalk from the 17th century onwards. Gun-flints were produced here in large quantities until the early 19th century.