 It is the county seat of Accomack County.Though Accomack County was established as one of Virginia's eight original shires in 1634, the government was situated in the southern part of the Eastern Shore near Eastville until the division of the shore into two counties (Northampton and Accomack) in 1663.During this era, religious diversity began in the area, as Presbyterian Francis Makemie received a plantation nearby which he used as a base for his mercantile and missionary journeys, and where he died at age 50 a few years after winning a New York court case brought against his preaching (as the Scots-Irish emigrant to Maryland's Eastern Shore counties produced a preaching license from Barbados).