Yorktown, historic town, seat (1634) of York county, southeastern Virginia, U.S. It is situated on the south bank of the York River across from Gloucester Point, just east-southeast of Williamsburg. The area around Yorktown was settled in 1630, but the town itself developed after 1691 when a port was authorized by Virginia’s General Assembly. Yorktown became a busy shipping centre, and its Colonial Custom House (1706; restored) is regarded as the cradle of the American tariff system. By 1750, however, its commercial role had declined together with the Tidewater Virginia tobacco trade. Yorktown’s place in history was assured by the siege and surrender there of British forces under General Lord Cornwallis in 1781, an event that virtually assured an American victory in the American Revolution. During the American Civil War Union forces under General George McClellan defeated General John Magruder’s Confederate troops in May 1862 and occupied the town.
Yorktown is now included in Colonial National Historical Park and is one leg of the “Historic Triangle” that includes Jamestown and Williamsburg. Augustine Moore House (c. 1725), at the edge of the Revolutionary War battlefield (which surrounds the town), was where the “Articles of Capitulation” were drafted (October 18, 1781) prior to their signing the next day in a British redoubt. The reconstructed York County Courthouse (1633), Grace Episcopal Church (1697; used by the British as a powder magazine), Victory Monument (1881; commemorating the American-French alliance), Yorktown National Civil War Cemetery, and the Waterman’s Museum (1981) are other points of interest.