The earliest traces of Native American sites in this area date from about 13,500 years ago. The recorded history of Arlington began in July 1608 with Captain John Smith. He and another 14 seamen sailed on an open boat from James Fort, arriving off the coast of a Native American village that, phonetically spelled according to Smith, was called Nameroughquena. Other Englishmen later simplified it to Necostin. The village, with a fighting force of no more than 80 men, and a total population of about 500 men, women, and children, received the seaman hospitably. However, when Captain Samuel Argall came to buy corn from then years later, they refused, and, in retaliation, Argall drove then from their village by force, and plunder and burn the village. The Natives then captured an Englishmen, Henry Fleet, who befriended them in the years to come. He left behind a detailed description of the area in the early 1630’s.
Arlington was within the land area defined by British land grants in the Colonial Era. Land grants were given to Englishmen, who explored and settled in the area. The County's oldest surviving structure is the Moses Ball log house located in the Glencarlyn neighborhood.
The county’s original founding was as Alexandria County, in 1801, but was renamed officially as Arlington County in 1920. Since its official founding as Arlington in 1920, the population has risen from just over 2,000,000, to just over 8,000,000.
(http://www.arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/learn/snapshots/native_americans.html)
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