In the 18th century, Berkley developed port facilities and a shipyard on the Elizabeth River across from Norfolk. In the 19th century, it was the rail terminus of the original
Norfolk Southern Railway, a regional
railroad extending 600 miles to
Charlotte, North Carolina (and a predecessor of the modern
Norfolk Southern rail system headquartered in Norfolk).
Both the Town of Berkley and Norfolk County are extinct as jurisdictions. Fearing annexation ambitions by its larger neighbor, the City of Norfolk, in the late 19th century, the town leaders petitioned the
Virginia General Assembly to become an
independent city (which would have created immunity from annexation), but the effort failed. On January 1, 1906, the Town of Berkley was annexed by the City of Norfolk, and is now considered a neighborhood of that city.[3] (Remaining portions of Norfolk County were consolidated with the
City of South Norfolk in 1963 to form the
City of Chesapeake).
On 13 April 1922, the "negro belt" of the city suffered a large fire that destroyed two hundred homes. Press reports said that the fire began in a lumber mill and spread rapidly.[4]
The Berkley North Historic District was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2000.[1] It encompasses 255 contributing buildings in one of southeast Virginia's oldest and most diverse communities, now part of the City of Norfolk. It includes a variety of early-20th century commercial and residential architecture, some of it designed by the area's most important firms. Notable buildings include the Lycurgus Berkley House (c. 1873), Norfleet House (1900), St. James Episcopal Church and adjacent chapel, Antioch Baptist church, Berkley Avenue Baptist Church (1885-1888), Merchants' and Planters' Bank, Seaboard Bank Building (1921), former Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Mary Hardy MacArthur Memorial.[5]
Mary Pinkney Hardy "Pinky" MacArthur (May 22, 1852–December 3, 1935), wife of
United States ArmyLieutenant GeneralArthur MacArthur, Jr. and mother of
General of the ArmyDouglas MacArthur, was born, raised and married at her Hardy family plantation, "Riveredge", in Berkley. A memorial to her stands at the north end of South Main Street, near the former site of the mansion.
William Henry Lewis (November 28, 1868 - January 1, 1949), the first African American appointed as an Assistant US Attorney (in Boston) and the first African-American US
Assistant Attorneys General. Born to
freedmen parents, he grew up in Berkley and went North to complete college, where he played football, and received his law degree.