THE SITE OF OLD

ES TOWNE
1607-1698

C^X£L

Samuel H. Yonge

•YAIUE-VMVIEiaSinnr-

Bought with the income of the
William C. Egleston Fund
\9V\

£

THE SITE OF OLD
"JAMES TOWNE"
1607 <3B> 1698
A Brief Historical and
Topographical Sketch
OF THE
First American Metropolis.
Illustrated with Original Maps,
Drawings and Photographs
BY
SAMUEL H. YONGE

'Bedivivum est ex vetusto renovatum." — Febtus.

Tercentenary Edition.

RICHMOND. VA.:
The Hermitage Press, Inc.
1907.

Copyright, 1903,
by
Samuel H. Yonge.

Copyright, 1907,
by
Samuel H. Yonge.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Cl 16 .530 k

to
MRS. JOSEPH BRYAN
PRESIDENT
OF THE
Association for the Preservation of
Virginia Antiquities
In recognition of her efforts for perpetuating
the ancient landmarks of
VIRGINIA
This book is dedicated
" Jlemove not the ancient landmark which
thy Fathers have set."
— ProverCs, Chap, xxii, v. 28.

preface to the
Tercentenary Edition.
J HE Site of Old 'James Towne/ 1607-1698," originally
appeared in four consecutive issues of the Virginia
^ Magazine of History and Biography, between January
and October, 1904. The monograph was published
in book form by the Association for the Preservation of Vir
ginia Antiquities in the same year. The work included the
results of the author's original investigations as to the town's
site, and was issued to correct the erroneous opinions on the
subject, that obtained up to the time of its publication.
The newly discovered matter comprised the locations of the
shore line of the head of Jamestown Island in the seventeenth
century and several other important topographical features, the
site of the former town, including its churches, state house
buildings and forts, the probable landing place of the first party
of settlers and the residences and grounds of some of the town's
prominent people. The determination of these features has
been generally accepted. It is disappointing, however, to find
that some of the most important original deductions have
appeared in other writings, without the customary credit being
accorded to " The Site of Old ' James Towne.' "
Since the first publication of the work, no information has
been discovered to throw additional light on the subject. After
a careful review of the available data and a study of the
Ambler MSS., it appears that no change can be made in the
map, as originally constructed from the transcripts of the old
patents at Bichmond, Va.
The text of the present edition is almost identically the
same as the first. The exceptions to the above are of a minor
character, consisting of the amplification of a few paragraphs
[5]

6 PKEFACE.
to make them clearer, and the addition of two chapters, one a
brief outline of some of the social and economic conditions that
obtained in England and Virginia during the Jamestown
period, the other a connected summary of important events that
occurred during the town's life.
The portraits of Sir Henry Wriothsley and Lord La Warr
are taken from Brown's Genesis of the United States, and that
of Sir Edwin Sandys from Brown's First Republic, with the
sanction of the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Com
pany, for which courtesy acknowledgment is hereby made.
The tercentenary edition is presented in response to numerous
requests, and to meet the demand for information on the sub
ject of the first English settlement in America, arising from
the interest awakened by the celebration of its three hundredth
anniversary. It should be a cause for congratulation to those who feel an
interest in the preservation of the historic site of Jamestown to
know that in January, 1906, the protection of the part of the
island bank exposed to the attack of the James Biver was com
pleted by extending the sea wall, constructed in 1901, to a
point where, according to the author's investigations, was situa
ted the southeastern corner of the palisades which inclosed the
.ancient fort town.
Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made of the valuable
assistance rendered by Mr. Erank D. Beckham, of Prince Wil
liam County, Virginia, in the preparation of this edition, also
to Mr. "Wm. G-. Stanard, the erudite Secretary of the Virginia
Historical Society, for many favors, and his encouragement and
support.

CONTENTS

Page
Dedication,  3
Preface  5 . g
Introduction,  11-17
Erroneous opinions of former writers as to the location
of the town site, and of the extent of its destruction
by the encroachments of the James.
Index to " Map of ' Iames Citty ', 1607-1698,"  18-20
References to historic and interesting localities at
Jamestown, shown on author's map.
Description of Jamestown Island  21-24
Its topography, tides, points of interest, locations, etc.
Abrasion of the Island  25-28
Causes. — Method of determining the rate and extent of
encroachments on the island by James River.
Landing Place of the First Settlers  29-30
Located from an allusion, in Percy's Discourse, to the
proximity of the six-fathom curve to the river bank,
and from a study of the water depths at Jamestown
Island and the physical characteristics of James
River.
Location of First Fort and Town  31-34
Description of the first fort. — Old writings interpreted
show its enlargement from one acre to four acres.
Locations of Block Houses,  35
Description of the Town  36-42
Class of habitations at different times, and the unavail
ing efforts made to promote the town's growth.
Population of the Town and Colony  43-45
Accessions to population by arrivals of new settlers. —
Mortality during different periods. — Increase in popu
lation of the colony. — Inertia of the town.
Sufferings of the Early Colonists,  46-49
Causes of -mortality. — Extracts from Frethorne's letter.
" The New Towne,"  50-58
Method of determining its position from the transcripts
of old land grants. — Description of the transcripts. —
References to town's site in old writings. — Positions
of grounds of governors and other residents. — The
streets.
[7]

contents.
West End of the Town  59-64
Positions of roadways, and grounds of prominent resi
dents.
Church Buildings and Original Graveyard of the
" Mother Christian Towne,"  65 -74
Method of determining the positions of the several
former church buildings and the graveyard, from
available data. — Excavation of foundations of churches
and what they revealed. — Description of the brick
church of 1639 - 1647. — Tombs and graves within the
church.
The Colonial Legislature,  75-76
Remarks on.
James City State Houses,  77-97
Determination of positions of the several former state
houses, and descriptions. — When built and de
stroyed. — Inns and residences used as state houses.
The Turf and Brick Forts,  98-102
Positions how determined. — References to by Mr. Rich
ard Randolph, Louis Hue Girardin and Rev. John
Clayton. — No picture of ancient Jamestown extant.
Historical Summary of the Jamestown Period,  104 - 131
Important occurrences during the terms of the presi
dents and governors, including brief accounts of Ba
con's Rebellion of 1676 and of the Tobacco Plant Cut
ting Riots of 1682.
The English and Virginians of the Seventeenth Cen
tury  132-143
Persecution of non-conformists and punishment of
witches. — Newspapers. — Education of women. — Con
dition of art, medical science and music. — Games,
wages, articles of diet. — Laws and penalties. — The
English courts and judiciary. — Class of settlers in
Virginia. — Early life in Virginia. — Money, means of
communication. — Silk culture, glass making, dwelling
houses, diet, dress. — The development of the Vir
ginian.
Appendix,  144 - 148
Details of method used in constructing map of " The
New Towne " from the old land grant transcripts.
Note. — The Ambler MSS. and " The Site of Old ' James
Towne,' 1607 - 1698,"  149-151
Allusions to, and comments on the Ambler Papers.

ILLUSTRATIONS

From original measurements, drawings and photographs by the
author.
Frontispiece. — The Brick Church of 1639 restored. To face page.
Map of " Iames Citty," Va., 1607 - 1698,  18
Constructed from studies of ancient land grants.
The Sea Wall,  25
Ruins of Church Structures,  66
In the Church Yard,  69
A sycamore centenarian, tomb of Rev. James Blair.
The Church Tower Ruin,  72
The Mysterious Tablet,  74
Ancient Foundations at Jamestown, Va.,  87
The state house, 1667 - 1698, Phillip Ludwell's three houses
and " The Country House."
Section of State House Foundations Excavated in 1903,  90
Captain John Smith's Coat of Arms,  98
Portraits :
Captain John Smith,  104
Lord Thomas La Warr, third Baron Delaware, first governor
of Virginia under the London Company,  110
Sir Edwin Sandys, second governor of the London Com
pany, and Sir Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of South
ampton, third governor of the London 'Company,  114
James the First, Charles the First and Charles the Second,
of England,  I33
James the Second and William and Mary  137
Plat of the Tracts,  145
Constructed from descriptions of surveys in old land grant
transcripts at Richmond.
Patent to William Sherwood, 1694, including land covering
part of the site of Jamestown. — From the Ambler MSS.,. . 150

The Site of Old "James Towne,"
(1607-1698)

BY SAMUEL. H. YONGE.

Introduction.
SfT was the author's privilege to have charge, under the direc-
|n tion of the United States Engineer Department in 1900
*jp and 1901, of the work of protecting Jamestown Island
from the encroachments of James Biver.
Before proceeding with the above work an attempt was made
to learn the cause and extent of the encroachments. The for
mer was soon discovered to be abrasion by wave action, while
the latter, on account of the available evidence being meager and
uncertain, could not be satisfactorily determined.
The abraded area at first appeared to be upwards of fifty acres,
having its greatest width, about three-eighths of a mile, at the
northwestern extremity of the island.
While the protection work was under construction new evi
dence offered, in the light of which the above area appeared too
large. This led to making personal researches among all avail
able sources of information, which occupied the leisure moments
of a period of two years.
The results of the above investigation, with regard to the site
of the former town, presented in the accompanying monograph,
are at variance with the statements of other modern writers.
There are but two descriptions available of the island and
town after the latter had passed beyond the transitional stage of
a military post, by writers of the time having a personal knowl
edge of the localities; one by an anonymous writer in about
[H]

12 1676, the other ten years later by the Bev. John Clayton. Both
descriptions are quite incomplete. Supplemented by informa
tion from other sources, however, they have considerable value,
especially that by Mr. Clayton.
In the description of the town by Mr. Bichard Bandolph, the
antiquarian, published in 1849, in the Virginia Historical Reg
ister, Vol. II, pages 138 and 139, occurs the following:
" I will only add that the great body of the town, which, how
ever, was never very large, was certainly west of the Old Steeple
still visible, and is now entirely, or very nearly, submerged in
the river. This is clearly proved by the old deeds for lots in the
town recorded in the office of James City County Court, which
call for bounds that are now under water, and more palpably, by
vast numbers of broken bricks and other relics of building that
may still be seen in the western bank at low tide."
It is evident from the above quotation that Mr. Bandolph was
not aware of the fact now disclosed that after about 1623 the
greater part of the village was east of the tower ruin. The
reasons for his belief that almost the entire town was west of the
ruin were probably the following: During about the last three
and a half decades of the town's existence the public buildings,
as will be shown in the following pages, were west of the tower,
on which fact, no doubt, the tradition was founded that the
whole town was in that neighborhood; and, as only the western
bank of the island was subsequently attacked by the waves, and
consequently the foundations of former buildings of that quarter
alone were exposed to view by abrasion of the bank, the above
tradition was apparently confirmed; further, after the last state
house and other buildings were burned in 1698, the standing
parts of buildings in the entire town were, in the course of time,
obliterated by the town site being put under cultivation and the
brick formerly composing the buildings being removed; and,
finally, on account of the long interval — a century and a half —
between the town's abandonment as the seat of government, by
which its few inhabitants, composed principally of resident state
officials and tavern keepers, were compelled to remove, and that

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 13
of a revival of any very great interest in the town, the traditions
depended on for fixing its position had become dim and defective.
From what follows it appears that writers of later date than
Mr. Bandolph accepted and reflected his views, without proper
investigation. According to Bishop Meade, in his Old Churches and Families
of Virginia, Vol. I, page 111, the town was situated between
the existing tower ruin and the upper extremity of the island,
its eastern end being a short distance (one hundred and fifty
yards) above the ruin, which he places at about a mile below the
northern end of the isthmus. He also states in effect that the
part of the island above alluded to had been encroached on by
the river, thereby implying that the greater part of the town site
had been washed away, and that traces of the town were visible
at low tide in front of the island bank, i. e., the western bank,
which was the part abraded.
From the brief description of the town by the late Edward
Duffield NeilL D. D., contained on page 203, Virginia Garolo-
rum, published in 1886, it would appear that he, too, believed
it to have been at the western extremity of the island. He also
states that the quarter called "the New Towne" had been de
stroyed by the encroachments of the river.
Dr. John Fiske informs us in Virginia and Her Neighbors,
Vol. II, page 120, published in 1896, that more than half of the
town site has been destroyed.
The deductions of Dr. Lyon Gardner Tyler regarding the
location of the town site, as set forth in the first edition of
The Cradle of the Republic are in line with those of other
authors. The unquestioned views of the above-mentioned writers that
the town was west of the church tower ruin and that the greater
part of it had been engulfed by the river were accepted as cor
rect in beginning the investigation of the subject. As no
information was available in historical works as to the extent
and shape of the abrasion of the island shore, a study was
made of the old records of seventeenth century land grants at

14 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
" James Citty." From these grants, principally, it was learned
that the town bordered not only the western shore of the island
immediately above the tower, but also the adjacent southern
shore below for a greater distance, with a total frontage on
the river of about three-fourths of a mile.
The patents also show that the quarter of the town referred
to in them as the " New Towne " was of a permanent and not of
an ephemeral character, and that for many years after its
establishment, about 1623, was the most important part of the
corporation. The most notable events and incidents of the
first two and last three decades of the town's history, however,
occurred at and west of the church still marked by the tower
ruin. The Cradle of the Republic is the only work in which an
attempt is made to describe the location of the town. On pages
19 and 40 of that work (the first edition) the Back Street of
" The New Towne " is placed on a ridge about 250 yards
northwesterly from the tower ruin, and on pages 53 and 54, a
one-acre tract acquired by William Sherwood in 1681 and a
tract belonging to Henry Hartwell in 1688 are located in the
same vicinage. If these locations were correct, the town must
always have been west of the tower ruin. In the following
chapters it will be shown that " The New Towne " with its
"Back Street," probably so named on account of being back
from the water front or behind the town, and Sherwood's and
Hartwell's lots, were east, instead of west of the tower ruin,
and towards the eastern end of the town. The Hartwell tract,
as shown on the "Map of lames Citty" accompanying, was
about five hundred yards east of the tower, on the southern
water front, instead of two hundred and fifty yards west, as
given by Dr. Tyler in the above-mentioned work.
In the description of the town during Sir Thomas Gates'
first term (1611), Vol. II, page 529, Economic History of
Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, by Philip Alexander
Bruce, the building of a bridge is construed to mean that the
structure connected the island with the mainland. This would

THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 15
have created an easy means for the Indians to reach the island
and attack the settlers. As will be shown further on, the
" bridge " was merely a wharf.
According to Bishop Meade, in his Old Churches and
Families of Virginia, the island was connected with the main
land by a causeway on the site of the former isthmus about the
middle of the eighteenth century. The causeway appears to
have been a pile trestle which was constructed in the first half
of the nineteenth century. It was destroyed by a storm after
standing a few years. During the latter half of the eighteenth
century there was a ferry at the site of the isthmus, which was
probably used by Lord Cornwallis for crossing his army to the
island while on his way south in July, 1781. About this time
he worsted "the boy" Lafayette in a spirited skirmish on the
mainland between Green Spring and the island and came here
near capturing him.
In constructing the chart of the town and its environs, the
localities where a number of historic scenes were enacted were
fixed, also the locations, with greater or less exactness, of the
grounds or dwellings of a number of the former residents, the
sites of two of the town's three forts and of several of its public
buildings. There being no definite information available for determining
the positions of the western bank of the head of the island dur
ing the Jamestown period, of the original paled town, also of
the first fort and early graveyard, it was necessary to depend on
reasonable conjecture. On account of not being based on data
of a definite character, as are most of the other localities treated
of, this part of the investigation is offered with a measure of dif
fidence. The deductions, however, are believed to be warranted
by the evidence. Unfortunately, there is nothing to show who
owned the land around the church tower anterior to 1683,
where, according to this investigation, before the " New Towne "
was established, the earliest town was situated.
The positions of the third and fourth state houses, and the
grounds of several persons conspicuous in the affairs of the

16 THE SITE 0E OLD JAMES TOWNE.
colony towards the close of the town's career are, however,
fixed in and near this older quarter of the town.
A description of the town would be incomplete without some
reference to its most interesting feature, the first Anglican
church in America. Brief descriptions of the Beveral church
structures of " James Citty " parish, erected at " James Citty,"
are therefore included.
As the page of the Virginia Land Patent Eecords containing
transcripts of two of the earliest patents, viz: to Sir George
Yeardley, Knight, and Captain Boger Smith, are missing, it
was necessary, for locating the tracts they represented, to depend
on the meager information contained in the Patent Becord In
dex, and the renditions of the missing transcripts as contained
in the writings of other investigators, which are not very satis
factory. An appendix comprises the details, in as comprehensive form
as possible, of the method of establishing the position of "the
New Towne." The plats of several grants which have been
located in " the New Towne " are omitted from the " Map of
lames Citty," as by introducing them those of greater antiquity
and interest would be covered, and confusion created in the
different lines. The parts of some of the plats which extend
beyond the limits of the town are also omitted.
All dates are given according to Old Style.
The occasion seems opportune for informing the reader that
the credit of rescuing from oblivion and preserving some of the
most important ancient landmarks of Virginia, including James
town, is entirely due to the Association for the Preservation of
Virginia Antiquities. Organized and administered by ladies of
the " Old Dominion," the association is not only arousing an
ever-increasing interest in events of colonial days, which en
genders a spirit of true patriotism, but in spite of a slender ex
chequer, is achieving remarkable results in preserving historic
landmarks. After exhausting all available sources of information about the
town, it is found that a great deal is lacking to make a knowl-

17
edge of the subject complete and satisfactory. This much, how
ever, is learned, that the town, even though measured by what
would appear to be a standard of its time, was small, poor and
insignificant. This fact invests the place with the deepest inter
est, when it is remembered that from such a small beginning in
the wilderness has sprung what bids fair to become, if not so
already, the greatest nation of the earth.
Three centuries have elapsed since the laying of the corner
stone of the nation's foundation. How striking the contrast
between then and now, in the mode of living, in the knowledge
of the sciences and the liberal arts, and in the supersedure of
intolerance and blind superstition by freedom of conscience and
enlightenment !

Index to
"Map of James Citty, Va., 1607-1698."
A — First Eidge, " Block House Hill," belonging to John Bauld-
win in 1656.
B — Second ridge, containing tracts of Eichard James, John
Bauldwin, Eev. Thomas Hampton, et al.
C — Third ridge, on which stood the third and fourth state houses.
D — Fourth ridge, on which the town was prineipaUy situated.
a, a, a, a — Jetties constructed in 1895-96 to protect island bank.
1 — Approximate position of western shore line of island, 1600-
1700.
2 — Present shore line of mainland above the island.
3 — Bridge across Back Biver on road to Williamsburg.
4 — Lot of Philip Ludwell, Esq., in 1694, containing the ruins
of three brick houses.
5— Third and fourth state houses, 1666 to 1698.
6—" Country House," in 1694.
7 — Part of foundations of building reputed to have been a
powder magazine.
8 — Site of brick fort constructed between 1670 and 1676.
9 — The lone cypress.
10 — Approximate position of northerly line between Bichard
James and John Bauldwin in 1657.
11 — Approximate site of tract of Eichard Saunders, 1644.
12 — Approximate site of tract of Edward ChaUis, 1643.
13 — Approximate site of tract of Eadulph Spraggon, 1644.
14 — Approximate site of tract of Geo. Gilbert, 1643.
15 — Probable outline of original paled four-acre town, shown
by red lines.
16— Tract of Edward Chilton, Attorney-General, 1683.
17— Tract of Wm. Edwards, Sr., 1690.
[18]

19
18 — Piles of former bridge between island and mainland, con
structed during first half of nineteenth century
19— Tract of John Howard, 1694.
20 — Tract of Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., 1694. Contains foundation
of chimney.
21 — Confederate fort constructed in 1861.
22 — Ancient tower ruin, inclosed part of old graveyard, and
foundation of third, fourth and fifth churches.
23 — Probable site of triangular fort constructed in 1607,
designated in 18th century MS, " Fort Hill."
24 — Probable site of "bridge" (wharf), constructed by Dale in
1611.
23 — Probable landing place of first settlers, May 14, 1607,
indicated by red flags.
26 — Approximate site of blockhouse, built by Captain Eichard
Stephens in 1624, and probable site of Berkeley's trench.
27 — Confederate redoubt commanding Back Biver, constructed
in 1861.
28 — Modern ditch draining " Pitch and Tarr Swamp."
29 — Boundary lines of tract belonging to the Association for the
Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
30 — ''The old state house" (approximate), used from about
1630 to 1656, on one-acre tract, of which part was sold
to Ludwell and Stegg in 1667. Most probably contained
Gov. Harvey's residence prior to 1641, Gov. Berkeley's
residence prior to 1656 and subsequently Gov. Bennett's
residence.
31 — Buins of building on site of Ambler-Jaquelin messuage.
32— Tract of John Chew, 1624.
33 — Tract of Captain Eichard Stephens, 1623.
34 — Tract of Captain Ealph Hamor, 1624, Secretary of State
and chronicler.
35 — Site of the turf fort, erected probably about 1663.
36 — Cross streets connecting " the way along the Maine Eiver "
and the Back Street.
37 — Tract of George Menefy, 1624, member of the Council of
State.

20 THE SITE OF OLD
38 — The " way along the Greate river," or " Maine river."
39 — Cart track " leading to Island House," in 1665.
40 — Causeway over swamp formerly connecting part of island
containing " the new towne " with the second ridge.
41 — One-acre tract bought by William Sherwood in 1681, " on
which formerly stood the brick house formerly called tha
Country House," and later, probably Sherwood's resi
dence.
42 — Jamestown Island wharf.
43 — Probable site of tract of Eichard Clarke, 1646.
44 — The " main cart path."
45—" The old Greate Eoad," in 1694.
46 — Ancient graveyard.
47 — Point where skeletons were exposed by bank abrasion in
1895.
48— Shore line of 1903.
49 — Traces of house foundations. Probable site of Eichard
Lawrence's dwelling about 1676.
N. B. Broken lines on map indicate approximate boundaries, etc.

Description of Jamestown Island.
fAMESTOWN Island is situated in James Eiver, sixty-
eight and three-fourths miles below the head of tidewater,
at the foot of the Eichmond rapids, and fifty-eight miles
above the Virginia capes.
No ancient charts of the island and town of the Jamestown
period (1607-1698), have been discovered. "The Draughte
by Boberte Tindall, of Virginia, Anno 1608," and "Chart of
Virginia," sent to Philip III of Spain in the same year by Zu-
fiiga to accompany the report of Francisco Maguel,1 " the Irish
man," a spy in the service of Spain, and published in The
Genesis of the United States, although possessing some merit as
reconnoisance sketches, prove to be inaccurate on comparison
with modern maps, and furnish information of but little value
as to the shape of the island and the site of the town.
The island, thus invariably designated in the old land patents,
and so referred to in Balph Hamor's Discourse, and other an
cient writings, is two and three-fourths miles long, with a width ]
varying from about three ljundred yards at its head to about one J
and one-fourth miles near its lower extremity. It was formerly j
connected at its upper extremity with the mainland by a narrow '
neck, which being at a much lower elevation than the island,
constituted an isthmus only at ordinary tides. What appear to
be traces of the isthmus are found at one to two feet below low
tide, just west of the piling of an old trestle bridge, which for
merly connected the island with the mainland. The bridge was
destroyed by a storm over fifty years ago. As compared withs
the neighboring mainland, the general elevation of the island is
low. Adjoining the head of the island is a marsh, which is referred
to in the old land patents as " belonging to the Back river."
The head of the island is composed of three ridges and part
1 His name was probably Francis McGill.
[21]

22 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
of a fourth, marked on accompanying map A, B, C, D, having
an easterly trend, and rising to about twelve to sixteen feet
above low tide. Between the three uppermost ridges are narrow
marshes or slashes. The slash between the first and second
formerly connected with Back Eiver only, but by the abrasion of
the western shore of the island it would now connect James Eiver
with the Back Eiver were it not for the recently constructed sea
wall. Between the second and third ridges is a slash or branch
of a large swamp situated near the middle of the island and ex
tending easterly to the Back Eiver. It drains into Spratley's
Bay, and was anciently referred to as "the Pitch and Tarr
Swamp." (See Map, Sketch of lames Citty Island.) About
two hundred yards inland from the western shore of the island
the above slash becomes the boundary between the second and
fourth ridges.
The boundary between the third and fourth ridges is "a
little vale," which, near the river bank, is two to three feet above
high tide. This valley, as will appear later, contained near its
former river end a brick fort constructed towards the close of
the seventeenth century. The head of the fourth ridge is re
ferred to in an eighteenth century MS. as Fort Hill. Here the
ground rises quite rapidly to an elevation of about ten feet, and
ifor two small areas to fourteen feet above low tide, forming two
knolls, one at the tower ruin and the other in the Confederate
fort of 1861. The two knolls were probably "the two Moun-
taines," on which Percy informs us, in his Discourse, " was sowne
most of our Come." The western extremities of the above
ridges, as is shown below, prior to the last two centuries extended
four or five hundred feet beyond the present island bank.
Below the fourth ridge is a narrow slash, now partly filled
with sand, another branch of the main swamp, in which there is
a minute stream referred to in the ancient patents as " Orchard
Bun," draining the swamp into the river (see sketch of " lames
Citty Island"). East of the last mentioned slash is a ridge,
also having an easterly trend. East of the above ridge and ex
tending to James Biver is a branch of a great marsh, referred to

23
below. Next follows a series of seven low ridges, forming
collectively what was anciently known as Goose Hill. The
Goose Hill ridges are separated by slashes of the extensive marsh
above referred to, lying north and east of them, named Goose
Hill marsh. It is drained into James Eiver by Passmore's or
Paschmore's Creek.
Goose Hill is a hill only in the same relative sense that the
two knolls where the English wheat was planted were mountains.
The fourth ridge has a larger area of good soil above extreme
high tide than the other ridges at the head of the island. The
Back Eiver, which is referred to in many of the old patents,
forms the northern boundary of the island. Although its chan
nel is from seven to twenty-three feet deep, the depth on the bar
in Spratley's Bay, into which it empties, is but four feet ; ample,
however, for the crossing of the "friggett," from which the
landing in Back Biver near the head of the island was named,
and of whose coming the town's people were apprised by a
musical note, as the vessel rounded " Pyping Point," '
Above the Back Eiver was situated " Sandy Bay," having the
isthmus for its western and " Powhatan Swamp " for its eastern
boundary, and receiving on the north the flow of Powhatan
Creek. Near the northeastern shore of the bay, about a milfe'
from "James Towne," was situated what is believed to have
been the first American glass works, in which beads were manu
factured for trading with the Indians.
As will appear later, the two branches of "Pitch and Tarr
Swamp " above mentioned were the upper and lower limits of
the principal part of " James Citty." A line of stumps, visible
at low tide, extending shoreward from a solitary cypress stand
ing two hundred and seventy feet from the recently constructed
sea wall, probably indicates the former position of the head of
the upper branch of the swamp, where, as will be shown further
on, a tract of land was granted in 1696 to Lieutenant Edward!
Eoss. 2 The point was located by platting a patent to Richard James
(Virginia Land Patent Records, Book III, p. 368).

24

THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.'

The mean tidal range at Jamestown Island is but twenty-two
inches. Great tides, however, rising to seven or eight feet
above low water, are occasionally caused by gales from between
south and east. Whenever the tide rose slightly above its nor
mal level, the isthmus was submerged. During great tides there
is a flow from the river through the depression between the third
and fourth ridges into the upper branch of the swamp."
"By the extension of the sea wall in 1905 and 1906, this flow is
prevented.

< s
^ s
a n

Abrasion of the Island.
*NTIL 1901, the length of the western bank exposed to
abrasion was about a half mile. In the above year
about half of the exposed bank was protected by the sea
wall before mentioned. This part of the wall ended at
the third ridge, thus fortunately protecting from the encroach
ments of the river the ground which two years later was found
to contain the old state house foundations. The shore of the
mainland from a short distance above the island to the
Chickahominy Eiver, a distance of about six miles, is being
abraded, and there are unmistakable signs of this action being
operative for a very long period in the past. There is very
good evidence that this bank was being abraded by the waves as
early as 1686. The above shore, on account of its projection,
originaUy formed a natural protection for the island headland,
and by its recession the latter became exposed to wave action.
It would hardly seem possible that the abrasion of the island
was in progress as early as 1686, or even in 1696, as in the
latter year a grant of land, situated on its western bank, con
tiguous to and below the upper branch of "Pitch and Tarr
Swamp " was made to Lieutenant Edward Boss,1 before alluded
to. It seems probable that the island was not attacked by the
river before 1700. Under this assumption, therefore, the whole
period of the island's abrasion to the time of its protection in
1901, would be two hundred and one years. Observation of
the bank in recent years shows that its annual rate of recession
has been about four feet. Prior to the extensive use of side
wheel steamers on James Eiver, probably about 1860, and when
occasional strong winds between west and north were the sole
destroying agents, the rate probably did not exceed two feet.
Applying the above rates for forty years and one hundred and
1 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IX, p. 49.
[25]

26 THE SITE OF OLD
sixty-one years respectively, the total width of the prism of
abrasion would amount to about 482 feet.
From the data contained in the following quotation from
Amoenitates Graphicae, a magazine edited by Professor Louis
Hue Girardin, in 1803,* "many yards of the palisades erected
by the first settlers are yet to be seen at a low tide standing at
least 150 to 200 paces from the present shore," it would appear
that the annual rate of abrasion, assuming the pace at thirty
inches, was about twice that given above. Professor Girardin's
description, however, shows that he was not accustomed to esti
mating distances, and his figures, therefore, do not appear to
have any value.
As the time when the abrasion began and its rate from time
to time are unknown, no reliable deduction can be made as
to the exact position of the western shore of the island in the
seventeenth century.
From the Edward Boss patent, the direction of the shore for
two hundred and fifteen feet, immediately below the head of the
upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp," is learned to have
then been about S. 3° W. (corrected for declination) or about
the same as that of the present western shore at the third ridge.
In 1891 there still remained, about sixty yards above the
Confederate fort, the lower part of the island headland, pro
jecting about thirty yards from the general line of the shore and
forming a sharp point, modernly known as " Church Point."
The lower side of the point in the above year furnishes the
general direction of the southern shore of the headland.
In the account of the bi-centenary celebration at Jamestown
Island in 1807, it is stated that the "Lady Washington," one
of the visiting vessels, anchored " in a beautiful cove in the form
of a crescent, which stretching on either side afforded a safe and
expanded bason.""
a Foot note, page 8, Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee
¦at James-Town (in 1807).
8 Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at James-Town, p. 7.

27
The point above mentioned, then projecting several hundred
feet further westward than the present shore, undoubtedly
formed the head of the cove. Its foot was about five-eighths of a
mile below its head, and is marked by an old abandoned wharf
which was in use in 1861. The shore of the cove below the new
wharf remains about as it was when the island was first settled.
The description of a course in the survey notes of a patent to
William Sherwood * " and by the same [Back Eiver] to Sandy
Bay, to a persimmon tree under Block House Hill, thence under
the said hill six chains to James River," shows that the head of
the island at the southern end of the isthmus was about 200 feet
wide. From patents issued to Alexander Stonar in 1637, and to
Bichard Sanders in 1644, for land situated on the first ridge; to
Edward Challis in 1643, to Eadulph Spraggon in 1644, and to
John Bauldwin in 1656/ on the second ridge, it would appear
that the general direction of the western bank of the island at
its upper extremity was approximately the same as it is to-day.
On account of incomplete descriptions, the true positions of the
above tracts cannot be determined. As even their approximate
locations give them some value, they are shown on the map.
From a reference in the Spraggon patent the approximate posi
tion of part of " the way leading towards the mayne," near the
head of the island, is established.
From the preceding data the shape of the head of the island
during the " James Citty " period, as exhibited on the map, was
determined. Since the first settlement of the island by the English, prob
ably twenty acres at its western extremity have been lost by
abrasion. The abraded area comprises principally parts of the
uppermost three ridges, and a very small proportion of the
fourth ridge. The tidal currents at Jamestown are too light to
erode the clay of which the banks at the head of the island are
* Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 384, et seq.
"Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 466; Book II, pp. 11, 12; Book
IV, p. 88.

28 formed. Wave action developed in the long reach of wide
water extending in a northwesterly direction has been the de
stroying agent, the waves from every passing steam vessel con
tributing to the work of destruction.
From the observation of the height of waves at Jamestown
Island, it seems evident that their abrading effect does not
reach to greater depths than three or four feet below low water.
The one fathom curve on the map, therefore, is considerably
west of the extreme outer limits of the western shore line during
the " James Citty " period.

Landing Place
of the First Settlers.
fHE trough of the channel off the head of the island has
steep sides, and is from fifty to ninety feet deep. As it
lies in a bed of dense, tough clay, the scouring effect of
the light currents of the locality, continuing even for
centuries, should be very slight. From the deposition of
material worn from the island and the shore above, there has
probably been a slight diminution of depth during the past
three hundred years in the thalweg or deepest part of the chan
nel, but little or none on its sides. The above remark is in
tended to apply particularly to the vicinity of Jamestown
Island. At other localities on James Eiver battures have
formed under projecting points between the trough of the
channel and the shores.
The hydrographic contours off the western shore of the island
show the channel gradually nearing that shore from above until
it approaches to within about one hundred and seventy-five yards
of it, at about three hundred yards above the tower ruin (see con
tours on map). Below the ruin it gradually leaves the island
and opposite the former site of the turf fort, hereinafter re
ferred to, is about three hundred and fifty yards from the shore.
The contours also exhibit a stretch of channel upwards of two
hundred and fifty feet long at the point of divergence above the
tower ruin, having its north side steeper than elsewhere in the
above reach of river.
According to the rate of abrasion above determined the western
shore of the island extended to the part of the channel having
the steep sides during the seventeenth century.
According to Master George Percy's Discourse, the ships, at j
the first landing place of the settlers, were moored to trees /
standing on the river bank, contiguous to which the water depth !
[29]

30 THE SITE OF OLD
was six fathoms. The modern contours of the channel, as has
been pointed out, cannot differ materially from those existing
when the first settlement was made. The part of the side of the
channel, therefore, which is steepest, and to which the island
bank formerly extended, is manifestly the spot where the settlers
debarked May 14, 1607, and of which Percy wrote, " where our
shippes doe lie so neere the shoare that they are moored to the
Trees in six fathom water."
The landing was well selected for convenience of discharging
the ship's cargoes and very few similarly suitable exist on James
Eiver. As Archer's Hope, on the mainland opposite the lower
end of the island, was regarded as a very desirable location for
the first settlement, and was rejected only on account of its
shore being made inaccessible to Newport's vessels by shallow
water the day before the island was selected, it is apparent that
the ease of discharging the vessels' cargoes directly on the river
bank outweighed many other far more important considerations
in deciding on the abiding place of the settlers.

Location of First Fort and Town.
pHE first fort, " which was triangle wise, having three Bul-
warkes at every corner like a halfe Moone and foure or
five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them," was com
pleted June 15 — the 31st day after the first settlers
disembarked.1 As there is no information extant as to the site
of the first fort, that detail will have to be arrived at induc
tively. It was not at the original landing place, for, from the
letter of Sir Thomas Dale, of May 25, 1611," "to the President
and Counsell of the Companie of Adventurers and Planters in
Virginia," it is learned that immediately after his arrival at
James Towne to succeed Lord La Warr as deputy governor, " a
bridge to land our goods safe and dry upon," i. e., a wharf, was
constructed by Captain Newport and "his Mariners." The
construction of this wharf is alluded to in the " Breife Decla
ration,"3 as follows:
"A framed Bridge was alsoe then erected, [during Sir Thomas
Smith's administration] which utterly decayed before the end
of Sir Thomas Smith's government, that being the only bridge
(any way soe to be called) that was ever in the country."
From the above it is obvious that the water was too shallow
for vessels to lie against the shore in front of the fort, which,
therefore, as above stated, was not at the original landing-place.
tIt was, however, probably not far distant, for if otherwise, the
settlers, with their limited means of carriage, would have been
at great labor in moving their equipment, stores and ordnance.
A natural site for the fort would have been just east of the
" little vale " at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge. Thus
situated, the guns of its north bastion would have swept the
1 Percy's Discourse.
' The Genesis of the United States, p. 488.
¦ A Breife Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia, &c, McDonald
Papers, Vol. I, pp. 103-142. [31]

32 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
branch of the swamp below and of the vale above, while those of
its east and west bastions would have commanded the river
front and the channel approaching from below, as did the guns
of its successor, the Confederate fort of 1861. In the above
described position the part of the branch of the swamp between
the second and fourth ridges would have afforded additional pro
tection against the Indians. The third ridge was possibly
strategically as favorable as the fourth, but its crest is two feet
lower and its area above the level of great tides much smaller.
It was, therefore, not as well adapted to the needs of the first
settlers. In excavating earth in 1861, at the head of the fourth ridge
near the Confederate fort for its construction, pieces of armor
and weapons of the early "James Towne" period were found,
a good indication that the fort of 1607 was located about as
above described. From the shore in front of it a wharf only
about two hundred feet long would have been required to reach
water twelve feet deep.
The parade ground where " the whole "Company every Satur
day exercised, in the plaine by the west Bulwarke, prepared for
that purpose" * * * " where sometimes more than an
hundred Salvages would stand in an amazement to behold, how
a fyle would batter a tree, where he [Captain John Smith] would
make them a marke to shoot at,"* was on the plateau at the
head of the fourth ridge between the western curtain of the tri
angular fort and the " little vale." As shown on the map, it was
three hundred feet long and upwards of one hundred feet wide.
From the " Breife Declaration," it is learned that " After this
first supplie" [January, 1608], "there were some few poore
howses built, & entrance made in cleeringe of grounde to the
quantitye of foure acres for the whole Collony, hunger & sick
ness not permittinge any great matters to be donne that yeare."
It does not seem probable that the clearing, on account of its
small area, was made for agricultural purposes, for while Captain
'Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 33
John Smith was president, probably in the spring of 1609, or
about a year after the clearing of the four acres was begun, thirty
or forty acres of ground were worked and planted.8 Whatever
may have been the purpose for which the four-acre tract was in
tended, it is evident from what follows that it, or some other
tract of the same area, was subsequently surrounded by a stock
ade and formed the town.
Further on in the same narrative by the " ancient planters "
appears the f oBowing : " Fortification against a foreign enemy
there was none, only two or three peeces of ordinance mounted,
& against a domestic [enemy] noe other but a pale inclosinge
the Towne, to the quantitye of foure acres within which those
buildings that weare erected, could not in any man's judgement,
neither did stand above five yeares & that ,not without eon-
tinuall reparations."
The part of the " Declaration " from which the above is ex
tracted is ambiguous and obscure, the settlements at Henrico
near Dutch Gap, about 14 miles below Bichmond, and James
Towne being described, as it were, in the same breath. It
would appear, however, from the context that the four acres
were at the latter place, and this view is indirectly confirmed by
Ealph Hamor, who, as appears from the following, gives the
area of Henrico as seven acres ; " and in the beginning of Sep
tember, 1611, he [Dale] set from Iamestown, and in a day & a
halfe, landed at a place where he purposed to seate & builde,
where he had not bin ten daies before he had very strongly im
paled seuen English Acres of ground for a towne." *
There are no data available giving the slightest clue as to the
situation of the four acres. It is believed that they included
the area of one acre covered by the first fort, as it is quite im
probable that the settlers had two distinct towns at the same
place. Shortly after Captain John Smith became president of the
*Ibid, pp. 154, 471.
8 A True Discourse of the present estate of Virginia, p. 29.
3— J. T.

34
colony (September, 1608) the plan of the fort was reduced to
" a five-square form." 7 This is construed to apply to the form
of the town, after it was enlarged as noted above.
The safest and, therefore, the most natural position for the
three-acre addition, would have been adjoining the eastern bul
wark of the triangular fort. From its southern end the minia
ture town, fronting the river, probably extended east about one
hundred yards, thence in a northerly direction to and along the
eastern wall of the graveyard, thence northwesterly by " the old
Greate Eoade " given as the eastern boundary of a tract granted
John Howard in 1694/ and thence westerly by a line which
subsequently formed the southern boundary of Bichard Law
rence's tract, and in the line of its prolongation about at the
level of great tides — eight feet above low water — to the north
bastion of the triangular fort, whose western and southern
bulwarks completed the inclosure. These lines would make the
fort " a five-square form " or pentagon. " The old Greate Boad,"
judging from its name, was of great antiquity. It was prob
ably one of the first roads opened by the settlers, and passed
along one of the paled sides of the early town, as above de
scribed.
/ The original triangular fort must have been maintained for
several years as an inner stronghold of the paled town. Dur
ing Strachey's sojourn in the colony, from May, 1610, to the
fall of 1611, the principal buildings were situated within it.
The stockade around the part of the town outside of the fort
proper was probably kept up for some time after the massacre of
1622, until the settlement gained a sufficient foothold to make it
unnecessary as a defence against the Indians./'
The greater part of the ground inclosed by the triangular
fort has been destroyed by the abrasion of the island bank.
7 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433.
• Va. Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82.

Locations of Block Houses.
fOE preventing incursions of the Indians across the isthmus,
Captain John Smith, in the spring of 1609, "built a
Blockhouse in the neck of our Isle." This was replaced
by a similar structure about 1624. The latter is referred
to in a patent to John Bauldwin in 1656, which locates it
approximately. It appears, from the patent, that the later
block house was near the earlier one. The ridge on which the
block houses were placed, the first ridge, is referred to in the
patents as Block House Hill. A "bank of earth not a flight
shot long cast up thwart the neck of the peninsula" by Sir
William Berkeley, in September, 1676, to oppose the entrance
of Bacon's men to " James Citty " 1 must have been situated on
the north side of Block House Hill at the southern end of the
isthmus. There were also, according to Ealph Hamor, two block
houses "to observe and watch least the Indians at any time
should swim over the back river and come into the Island." He
does not, however, give their locations. They were on the Back
Eiver, one probably at Friggett Landing, the other below Gov
ernor Yeardley's place.
1 The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in
Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676, by T. M. — Force's Historical
Tracts, Vol. I, p. 21.

[35]

Description of the Town.
fHE cluster of huts constituting the habitations of the
first hundred settlers, enfolded in its chrysalis-like
stockade, was hardly entitled to the appeBation of
town. The term city, given the collection of unpre
tentious brick buildings of a later day, was equally a misnomer.
For the details of the first structures erected, as of most other
matters pertaining to the early settlement, Captain John Smith
is the principal authority.
As the time of Newport's colony, immediately after its arrival
in Virginia was occupied in exploring the country, building the
stockade, and preparing a cargo for the return voyage of the
ships, the building of quarters was neglected, and those erected
were inadequate in number and afforded but imperfect shelter.
The best of them were built of rails and roofed with marsh grass
thatch covered with earth.1 According to the "Breife Decla
ration," some of the settlers lived in holes in the ground, as is
sometimes done on the western plains, where they are caUed
" dug-outs." After Newport's departure, hot weather and general iBness of
the party supervening, the completing of the huts was prevented
until the fall of 1607."
,. The first huts were destroyed by fire in January, 1608, and
were not fully replaced until after Newport's departure for Eng
land, in April of that year/ about which time the clearing of
the four acres was begun.
The huts which replaced those that were burned were more
comfortable than the latter. Their sides were lined with Indian
1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 957. (The references in this
monograph to " Works, Captain John Smith," are from Prof. Edward
'Arber's edition.)
'Ibid, pp. 10, 96, 392. *IMd, pp. 105, 409.
[36]

37
mats, and the roofs made of boards/ They were apparently
without floors. Improvements were gradually made in hut
construction by roofing with the bark of trees so as to shed
water, probably in the same manner as half cylinder roofing
tiles are used, and erecting " wide and large country chimnies,"
of wattles plastered with clay.6 About a year later twenty
additional houses were added/ and, when Captain Smith left the
settlement in 1609, it had, according to his account, within the
fort, then equipped with twenty-four guns of different calibers,
of which, however, probably not over six were mounted in the
bastions, besides the church and store house, forty or fifty of the
above huts.' Dr. Simmonds states that there were fifty or sixty
houses within the stockade/ where also was situated the well,
prior to digging which the settlers drank the often brackish
water of the river. The well water, naturaUy enough, was fiUed
with organic matter. It undoubtedly caused most of the
malaria and enteric troubles of the settlers. It was found to
be in an unsanitary condition by Dale in 1611, resulting prob
ably from its proximity to the huts. Dale proposed, among
other improvements to be made in the town, the digging of a
new weU. In 1617 the new well was found to be poUuted."
The fort undoubtedly stood above the level of great tides, as
otherwise, Captain John Smith or others would have referred in
their writings to the discomforts arising from tidal inundations.
Judging from the contours of the ground, at or adjoining the
site of the fort, its elevation was not less than seven or eight
feet above low water.10
* Ibid, pp. 502, 503. B Purchas His Pilgrimes, Lib. IX, p. 1752.
6 Works, Captain John Smith, pp. 154, 471.
7 Ibid, p. 612. "Ibid, p. 486.
" Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535.
"The depth of the well In the fort is given by Strachey in Pur
chas His Pilgrimes at six or seven fathoms. This, evidently, is a
misprint, and should read six or seven feet. The level of the water in
, wells on the island follows that of the tides. The bottom of an
ancient well on the jthird.ridge>.is about 1% feet below low tide. A
proper depth for; a. well in the fort"would probably have been 7 to
9% feet, depending'oiT the\elevatibn of. the 'ground.

38 THE SITE OF OLD
According to Strachey, whose writings show that he was well
grounded in the humanities, although not so well versed in the
science of numbers, the ground enclosed by the first fort had an
area of a half-acre. The fort was a stockade about fourteen feet
high, formed of trees set about four feet in the ground. Its
south curtain or bulwark was one hundred and forty yards long-
and the other two sides one hundred yards each. It is inferred
from each of the pales forming a load for two or three men, that
they were eight to ten inches in diameter."
It is very improbable that the fort had any earthworks. It
had three entrances or ports, one through each curtain or bul
wark, the principal one being through the south curtain.
Within the stockade, facing each port, was a fieldpiece.
The huts were arranged in rows parallel to the curtains with
a street thirty to thirty-six feet wide intervening. Within the
hollow triangle formed by the lines of huts, and having probably
an area of about a half acre, were the guard house, the market.
place and the chapel "in length three score foote in breadth
twenty-f oure." M
Dr. Simmonds gives the width of the streets between the lines-
of huts and the palisades at eight to ten yards.1"
In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale erected a "munition-house," a
powder-house, a fish-house, a shelter-shed for cattle and a stable,"
and a few months later Sir Thomas Gates added a storehouse,
covering a space of one hundred and twenty by forty feet and a.
number (not given) of log houses arranged in two rows, some
of which were two stories and a garret high. About this time
also the stockade was repaired and a new gun platform placed at
its western end, presumably at the point of the triangular fort
known as the west bastion." It is apparent that if all of the
11 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 612.
n Purchas His Pilgrimes, Liber IX, pp. 1752, 1753.
"Works, Captain John Smith, p. 407.
" The Genesis of the United States, p. 492.
™ Hamor's True Discourse, p. 33.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 39
different structures above enumerated were situated within the
triangular fort, whose area was a smaB fraction more than one
acre, there would have remained little or no room for the three
or four hundred people who sometimes constituted the popula
tion. Some of the buildings, therefore, were outside of the
triangle and in other parts of the paled town. The place must
now have presented an appearance similar to that of some of our
earlier frontier posts.
On account, no doubt, of unseasoned or sappy timber being used
for the log houses, but five or six remained serviceable in 1617.1"
No improvements, however, appear to have been made after
Gates' second administration in 1614, or new buildings added
except the wooden church last referred to, whose dimensions
were fifty by twenty feet, until Sir George Yeardley's arrival in
1619. In 1623 there were but twenty-two dweUings at "James
Citty," a seemingly insufficient number to accommodate the new
settlers who, on their way to the interior, for several years, had
been arriving in large numbers. The massacre of 1622 and un
favorable reports of the colony published by several unprincipled
partisans of Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer or governor of the
London Company, to create prejudice against and destroy con
fidence in the Virginia enterprise under the administrations of
Sir Edwin Sandys, Smythe's successor, and of the Earl of South
ampton, who succeeded Sandys, checked the growth of the
colony and, to some extent, therefore, that of the town.
For many years the place apparently made little or no pro
gress. On February 20, 1636, a law was enacted by the Grand
Assembly " providing for a grant of a house lot and garden plot
to every settler that would build thereon within six months. A
similar law was made in 1638, and, as a result, twelve dwellings
and stores, including the first brick house of the colony, sixteen
"Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535.
"Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I,p. 689.

40 THE SITE OF OLD
by twenty-four feet in plan, were erected. Within the year fol
lowing aU the lots along the town's water front were patented."
The patent records contain eight land grants made within the
town precincts between 1636 and 1642." In the latter year Sir
WiUiam Berkeley, the new governor, arrived bearing instruc
tions from the Eoyal government to rebuild the town with brick
houses. According to the instructions every person who, " with
in a convenient time," should erect in any town of the colony a
brick dwelling sixteen by twenty-four feet with a ceUar would be
granted five hundred acres of land. The colonial government
was also empowered, in view of the existing town having proved
unhealthy, to build a new one elsewhere, which, however, should
bear the original name of " James Towne." M In March, 1643,
the Grand Assembly framed a statute, according to which
builders of houses on deserted lots in "James Citty" would
acquire a title to the lot built on, provided the back quit rents
were paid.21
The patent transcripts contain twelve issues for town lots be
tween 1642 and 1662. At the close of the interregnum in 1661,
during Sir William Berkeley's second term as governor of Vir
ginia, he was again urged by the king to take steps to enlarge
the town by erecting more houses, the monarch assuring him
that "Wee will take it very weB at their hands if they [the
members of the colonial council] will each of them build one or
more houses there." ""
In deference to the king's wish, an act was passed at the next
ensuing session of the Assembly, inhibiting the building of any
more wooden houses, and prescribing that there should .be
"McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 247-249. Governor Harvey and
Council to Privy Council, January, 1639.
"Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, pp. 466, 587, 588, 595,
598, 689, 730. Reference is made hereinafter to the incompleteness
of the records.
20 Instructions to Governor Berkeley and Council, August, 1641.— ¦
McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 383.
aHening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 252.
82 Instructions to Governor Berkeley, McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 414.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 41
erected at "James Citty" thirty-two brick houses, forty by
twenty feet in plan inside, apparently two stories high, and
roofed with slate or tile."3 Each of the seventeen counties was
required to build, at its expense, one of the houses. The above
attempt to force the town's growth was a failure, for in 1676, at
the outbreak of Bacon's Bebellion, the community held but six
teen or eighteen dweUings, most " as is the church built of brick,
f aire and large ; and in them a dozen families (for all the houses
are not inhabited) getting their liveings by keeping of ordinaries
at extreordinary rates."" The unoccupied houses were some
of those which had been ordered built by statute of December,
1662, but had never been completed,85 most probably on account
of the poverty of their builders.
In 1676 the entire town was destroyed by Bacon as a strategic
measure. In 1682, Lord Culpeper, the governor, received instructions
from England to rebuild, the royal good wiU being again tend
ered, as in the message to Berkeley of 1661, to the members of
the council and prominent citizens of the town who should ini
tiate the work. Two good houses had at that time been erected
by Colonel Bacon the elder, and others were either under con
struction or proposed. Lord Culpeper's reply to the king's mes
sage contains a reason for the town's lack of recuperative power.
" I have given all encouragement possible for the rebuilding of
James Citty, The Generall Courts, publick offices, and meetings
of Assemblies having been alwayes kept there, And Greenspring
(the nearest convenient habitation) My place of Eesidence. But
there being an Apprehension in many persons that there are
other places in the Country more proper for a Metropolis, And
that the aforesaid Act for Building Townes, would make one in
the most naturall place, there hath not till now of late been Any
Great Advance therein. As to the proposall of Building Houses
^Hening's Statutes, Vol II, p. 172.
"Burwell MS., Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, Bacons Proseed-
ings. 25 British State Papers, Colonial, No. 62.

42 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.
by those of the CounceB and the cheefe Inhabitants, It hath
been once attempted in vaine, nothing but profitt and advantage
can doe it, and then there will be noe need of Anything else." "*
In 1697 the number of houses in the town was reported to be
twenty or thirty.
In 1698, the royal mandate to build up the town was reiterated
to Governor Nicholson, but before any steps could be taken to
act on it, a fire occurred, by which the statehouse and prison,27
and probably all other buildings on the third ridge, were de
stroyed. At a session of the General Assembly held in April, 1699, acts
were passed for establishing the city of Williamsburg (about
eight miles north-east of " James Towne "), for erecting a state
house there and providing for raising funds to defray its cost
by imposing an import tax on slaves, also on servants not born
in England or Wales, brought to the colony.28
After the fire of 1698, "James Citty" waned. One patent
for a small tract in the town, issued in October, 1699/" is of re
cord, but no new houses are known to have been erected.
Twenty-three years later, the place comprised nothing but
" Abundance of Brick Eubbish and three or four good inhabited
Houses, tho' the Parish is of pretty large Extent, but less than
others." 30 In 1807, there were two dwellings on the island, the
Jaquelin-Ambler and Travis mansions, and in 1861, but one,
the former, which was burned during the ensuing war. The
above house was afterwards rebuilt, and again burned in 1896.
The ground on which it formerly stood was probably owned by
Sir Francis Wyatt in 1623. At some time prior to 1690 it be
longed to John Page, clerk of the Assembly, from whom it was
purchased by William Sherwood."
w McDonald Papers, Vol. VI, p. 165.
27 The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25.
wHening's Statues, Vol. Ill, pp. 193 and 197.
28 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IX, p. 232.
80 The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25.
n Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384.

Population of the Town and Colony.
sUEING the first eighteen years of the settling of Virginia
there were great fluctuations in the population of the
colony, and also of "James Forte" or "James
Towne." Each influx of new life was followed by a more
or less rapid ebbing of the human tide, resulting from the
ravages of disease and the tomahawk. During the first eight
months the fort's population dwindled from one hundred and
five to a little band of thirty-eight persons, the smaBest number
that the colony ever held. By the arrival of several reinforce
ments during the twenty-one months following (January, 1608,
to October, 1609), its population was increased to upwards of
490.1 Within eight months the above number was reduced by
death from starvation, climatic illness, and pestilence, to about
sixty persons. Fresh accessions under Gates and La Warr in
June, 1610, brought the number up to about 350, most of whom
were quartered in the town. In a few months this number was
diminished by death to about 200. Thus far about 900 persons
had been sent from England to Virginia, of whom about 700 had
perished. The numbers and mortality of Virginia emigrants
for the ensuing twenty years as given by different authorities are
discrepant. Between December, 1606, and November, 1619, it is estimated
that 2,540 persons emigrated to Virginia, of whom 1,640 died.2
Between the latter date and February, 1625, 4,749 colonists
came to Virginia and 4,400 died, thus making a total mortality
in about nineteen years of 6,040, out of 7,289."
According to John Wroth, a member of the Warwick faction,
up to 1623, 3,570 out of 5,270 colonists died in the four years
1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 486. The numbers reported.
brought by different vessels indicate a less number.
3 The First Republic in America, pp. 285, 329.
'Ibid, p. 612. [43]

44
ending with 1622.* Captain Nathaniel Butler represented that
up to the winter of 1622, the mortality was 8,000 out of 10,000/
while the resident colonists declared that up to the winter of
1622 not over 6,000 were sent to Virginia, of whom 2,500 were
living." Captain John Smith says: "neere 7,000 people" out
of 8,500 had died to 1627.'
As pointed out above, there were in June, 1610, about 350
people at "James Towne." In 1616, there were on the entire
island fifty persons, under Lieutenant Sharpe. It is stated that
in the following year there were 400 persons at " James Towne,"
of whom, on account of sickness, only one-half were effective/
A census taken in 1623 gives the population of the town at
183. It also shows that during the preceding year, eighty-nine
had died in the town."
Although " James Citty " had now assumed more of the pro
portions of a town, it possessed none of the attractions or aEure-
ments which would demand expenditures of money, and probably
but few opportunities for making it in trade. The simple,
primitive tastes of the settlers, coupled with their general
poverty, made shops superfluous. In 1625 the town had one
merchant's store.10 An attempt was made in 1649 to hold
a bi-weekly market. This was a complete failure and six years
later, the act providing for the market was repealed."
Nearly aU who came to the colony, except the officials, had all
to make and little to spend. The population of the town, there
fore, did not keep pace with that of the colony, in which, after
about the first twenty-five years, it slowly but steadily in-
1 The Genesis of the United States, p. 1064.
0 The Unmasked Face.
6 The Denial of Nathaniel Butler's " The Unmasked Face," Neill's
History of the Va. Company, p. 405.
'Works, Captain John Smith, p. 884. 'Ibid, p. 536
•McDonald Papers, Vol. I.
10 The First Republic in America, p. 623.
nHening's Statutes, Vol. I, pp. 362, 397.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 45
creased. In 1634 it amounted to 5,119 f in 1649, to 15,000;"
in 1665, to 40,000;" in 1681, to 70,000 or 80,000 f and in 1715
to 95,000.M The function of the town was that of furnishing a
place for the assembling of the Legislature and for holding courts.
Its permanent population, after about 1623, comprised only a
part of the bureaucracy of the colony, and tavern keepers, with
their respective families, amounting possibly to one hundred
persons, which approximate number was periodicaBy doubled by
the meetings of the Assembly and court.
13 State Papers, Colonial, Vol. 8, No. 65, 1634, De Jarnette Papers.
13 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. II. A Perfect Description of Vir
ginia, p. 1.
"Winder Papers, Vol. I, p. 187.
^Sainsbury Abstracts, Vol. 1681-1685, par. 275. Of this number
76 per cent, were freemen.
18 Chalmer's American Colonies, Vol. II, p. 7.

Sufferings of the Early Colonists.

In printing.
these lines
were acci
dentally
trans posed.

fHE settlement near the head of Jamestown Island was at
first called " James Forte " and " James Towne," usuaBy
the latter. After the town was enlarged in 1608, and
until about 1620, or shortly after the close of Sir Thomas
Smythe's administration as governor of the London Company,
it was almost invariably referred to by the latter appeBation.
The sufferings of the colonists during the above period have
probably never been surpassed or even equaUed in measure or
degree in any other pioneer colony. Under the Smythe regime
the colonists' greatest sufferings resulted from hunger. Hand
in hand with famine stalked pestilence, yellow fever communi
cated by vessels bound for " James Towne " which had touched
at the West Indies, and bubonic plague and cholera brought from
London. Fevers and dysentery resulting from exposure, nox
ious exhalations from the surrounding marshes and from forest
mould for the first time exposed to the heat of the summer sun,
impure drinking water and the mosquito all had their share
in decimating the colony. The medical treatment then in
vogue doubtless increased the mortality, bringing fatal results
to many who, without it would have recovered. That the
leaders did not succumb was no doubt largely due to nearly all
being in the prime of manhood and inured to hardship through
the campaigns against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, by
which experience they had learned how to avert some of the
bad effects of camp life.
1 j As the colonists were but meagerly supplied with provisions
i ] for export, for the benefit of the London Company, their sub-
5 jsistenee during the first four or five years was derived principally
2 ! from England and raised but few food products, their labor be-
3 ing principally employed in producing tobacco and other articles
e from the Indian, either by force or barter. They were not per-
[46]

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 47
mitted to engage in planting on their own account, except on
condition of contributing a part of their crops and one month's
services annually to the London Company. Their letters to
and from England were intercepted and proffers of assistance
to the company in behalf of individual colonists from their
friends were declined, with the assurance that they were well
provided for. None was allowed to leave Virginia, except by
special permission, and it is narrated that a passport from the
king for the return of a colonist to England was sewed in a
garter to insure its delivery.1
The settlers were, to all purposes, in a state of servitude, from
which, as a special favor, some were offered release on condition
of working three years on Fort Charles. The abhorrence with
which life in the colony was regarded is exemplified by a state
ment in a letter from the Spanish Ambassador in London to
Philip III, of Spain, in December, 1616, that while two of three
thieves under sentence of death availed themselves of the alter
native of going to Virginia, the third preferred hanging.3
The climax of suffering was reached when on June 7, 1610,
the sixty survivors of four hundred and ninety settlers of but
eight months before, broken in health and crushed in spirit,
turned their backs on the odious town where tragedy had been
almost continually enacted for three years. So deeply impressed
by the abject misery of this remnant had been the members of
the lately arrived party of Sir Thomas Gates that they had
Teadily joined in the flight from suffering and horrors which they
believed would be their lot if they tarried at the ill-favored spot.
This, the climax of the critical period of the colony, was safely
passed when the astute La Warr, newly appointed governor of
Virginia, being apprised on his arrival from England at Point
Comfort of the intended abandonment of the colony, thwarted
the plan by despatching Captain Brewster ahead of his fleet to
meet the forlorn party, and turned it back to the deserted post,
1 A Brief e Declaration, etc., McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 103-142
2 The Genesis of the United States, p. 900.

48 where the tragedy was renewed for another and longer term of
years. An amelioration of the colonists' condition was brought about
by the election in 1619, of Sir Edwin Sandys, as successor to
Sir Thomas Smythe, to the office of treasurer or governor of
the London Company. Even before the new administration was
elected, the former policy of the company, which had been
actuated by commercial avarice, was abandoned, through the in
fluence of the Sandys party, which inaugurated in its stead one
inspired by broad and liberal views. The "most severe and
cruel" "Lavves, Diuine, Morall and Martiall," were repealed,
and courts of justice established after the manner of those of
the mother country; the "ancient planters" who had arrived
before the time of Dale were released from further service to the
colony, land titles were confirmed and the individual ownership
of land introduced by patent. The colony was also aBowed to
elect its own legislative body. The last mentioned privilege,
however, although enjoyed in 1619, does not appear to have
been officially promulgated until the publication of the written
constitution in 1621/ under the administration of Sir Henry
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who had succeeded Sir
Edwin Sandys in 1620. These reforms and privileges stimu
lated the colony to renewed efforts and led to the development of
its principal town.
As late as 1623, however, when the needs of the colonists
should have been understood in England, their condition was
often deplorable. Statements by members of the crew of one of
the ships arriving in Virginia in that year attested to newly
arrived emigrants dying in the streets of James Towne, and
lying there until the dogs had eaten their bodies. A most for
lorn and mournful message from Virginia of this time is a
letter of Bichard Frethorne, of Martin's Hundred, about seven
miles below Jamestown, to his parents in England, that " since
he landed he had eaten nothing but pease and loblolly (water
gruel). He had seen no venison and was not allowed to go
'Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, pp. 110, 111, 112.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 49
after waterfowl, but had to work both early and late for a mess'
of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. The people;
cried out ' Oh ! that they were in England without their limbs;
* * * though they begged from door to door.' There was noth
ing to be got but sickness and death, except that one had money
to lay out in some things for profit but (I) have nothing at all,
no not a shirt to (my) back, but two rags, nor no clothes but
one poor suit, nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stock
ings, but one cap, but two bands." His cloak had been stolen
by one of his fellows. He had not a penny to help him to
" spice " or sugar, or strong waters, without which it was impos
sible to live. He had grown weak, for he had often eaten more
in a day at home tha 1 was now allowed him for a week, and his
parents had often given more than his present day's allowance
to a beggar at the door. Goodman * Jackson had been very kind
to him, and marvelled much that he had been sent (as) " a
servant to the company " and said he " had been better knocked
on the head." He entreated his father to redeem him, or at
any rate to send provisions which might be sold at a profit,
especially cheese, etc. * * * Unless the " Sea-Flower " came in
with provisions, his master's men would have but a half-penny
loaf for each day's food and might be "turned up to the land
and eat bark of trees or moulds of the ground. Therefore, Oh J
that you did see my daily and hourly sighs, groans and tears
and thumps that I afford my breast and rue and curse the time
of my birth with holy Job. I thought no head had been able
to hold so much water as hath and doth daily flow from mine
eyes." The " Sea Flower " was destroyed by an explosion of gun
powder, so that Frethorne's worst misgivings may have been
realized/ 'Goodman and Goodwife, forms of address then used in England
instead of Mr. and Mrs.
BDuke of Manchester's MSS. in 8th Report of Royal Commission
on Historical MSS.
4— J. T.

"The New Towne."
fHE new policy of the company was carried out by Sir
George Yeardley, whose methods were in striking con
trast with those of his predecessor, the unprincipled
Argall. This marked the beginning of a new era in the
colony, of which a feature was "the New Towne," as it was
styled in the patents to its residents, with new and better con
structed habitations. The term " The New Towne " was appBed
to about fifty acres on the fourth ridge adjoining on the east the
original stockade town of four acres.
One of the thoroughfares of "the New Towne" is referred
to in the patents as " the Back Street." As will appear below,
"the New Towne" at first comprised the most important part
of the corporation, and, as a matter of fact, seems to have been
the first substantiaUy buUt town. Prior to its establishment,
land appears not to have been perfectly vested in the settlers.
With the beginning of this era and ever after, the place is re
ferred to in the surviving patent transcripts, with the single ex
ception of one of 1664, in which it is called "James Towne,"
as "James Citty." It is also invariably so referred to in the
reports of the meetings of the General or Grand Assembly. The
island and containing county were named from the town, the
county stUl bearing the name of James City.
Although the official name of the place was "James Citty,"
it was generally referred to in official correspondence as " James
Towne." As it is the general opinion that the greater part of the an
cient town site has been washed away, it wBl be a sur
prise to many to learn that this view is erroneous. The proof
of the error is furnished by the old "James Citty" patent
records, which, when properly interpreted, show that but a
small proportion of the town site has been destroyed, and that
the quarter called "the New Towne" has not been encroached
[50]

51
on to any appreciable extent by the river. Eeferences in some
of the patents to branches of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp," and to
other topographical features which are probably almost as clearly
defined as they were two or three centuries ago, have made it
possible to locate the site of " the New Towne," and the greater
part of the west end, or old town quarter. Former students of
the records have either abandoned them with the conviction that
they were too indefinite or obscure for solution, or misconstru
ing them, evolved incoherent conclusions which have misled and
confused the reader. The transcripts pertaining to "James
Citty," which are valued principally as old curios, form a laby
rinth, in treading which for a long time, a step in any direction
led seemingly to hopeless perplexities, and only after repeated
and long continued efforts to interpret them, was the " open
sesame " found, and a sufficient number linked together to fur
nish a chart of the ancient town. The period they cover ex
tends from 1619 to 1699. The pages of the record containing
two of the earliest and most interesting grants, viz : to Governor
Sir George Yeardley, KJnt., and Captain Boger Smith, as stated
in the introduction, are missing. This will be generally re
gretted, as possibly on account of their not having been cor
rectly deciphered, the renditions contained in historical publi
cations are not clear.
The method employed in evolving the chart from the patents,
although apparently not complicated, was slow, tedious, and re
plete with failures. Briefly stated, it consisted of finding and
uniting plats of different tracts found to have common bound
aries. The topography and objects referred to in the patents
were platted simultaneously with the boundaries of the land
they described.
The incompleteness of the existing records is made apparent
by the references in several transcripts to patents which are not
of record. Those missing were no doubt improperly entered
"in books labelled Bonds, Commissions, Depositions," &c./
1Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 509.

52
which were destroyed in the burning of the office of the General
Court during the evacuation of Bichmond in 1865. Although
the records are incomplete, and the descriptions in some of
those available contain inaccuracies which required considerable
study to correct, whfle those in others are too meagre or vague
to afford any clue to the land's position, they, in many cases,
not only furnish the metes and bounds of the area patented, but
also a variety of other information, e. g., the ancient names of
different localities of the town and island, the positions and
directions of the river-bank and highways, the sites of the second
fort, caBed "the turf fort," "the Back Street," in "the New
Towne," "the Country House," burned, probably, about 1660,
the several statehouse buildings, dweBings of some of the later
residents, and other objects now of great interest. A few of
the earlier patents record the vocation and social position of
the patentee and even the name of the ship in which he came
to Virginia, and the year of arrival.
The majority of the plats based on the patents, and repre
sented on the map by solid lines, probably possess about the
same degree of accuracy as the work of the average class of
compass surveys of to-day. Between 1623 and 1644 only the
general directions of land lines are given in the descriptions.
About the latter year the surveyors were apparently less inexact
and recorded azimuths to the nearest quarter point, or about
2% degrees. In a patent of 1656 the azimuths of several sides
are given to % point.
The direction of the Back Street in the Pott patent of 1624 is.
recorded as "eastward." The azimuth of the street is more
definitely stated in the Phips patent, which included the Pott
patent, and was issued thirty-two years later, as E. S. E. 14 S.
UntB about 1667 the azimuths of lines were expressed in the
same terms as are employed by mariners in boxing the com
pass. Beginning with the above year, azimuths are given in
degrees. By 1683, more careful work appears to have been the
rule, and azimuths are recorded to one-fourth of a degree. It
would appear from the foregoing that prior to about 1667 some

53
form of the mariner's compass was used in making land sur
veys, and that about that year the cireumf erentor came into use.
The consideration on account of which land was granted was
always specified in the patent. During the first twenty years it
was usually a reimbursement to the patentee of the cost of his
own transportation and that of others to the colony, which he
had defrayed. The portions of land are styled devidends * and
dividents, and were for fifty acres per capita. The grant was
conditioned by the annual payment of a nominal sum of money
(one shilling per 50 acres) or quantity of tobacco (two to five
pounds), designated a fee rent. The fee was made payable in
money or tobacco to the " Cape Merchant," as the treasurer
was caBed, either at the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel, or
at that of St. Thomas, the Apostle. In at least two of the
"James City" patents the specified fee is a capon, "to his
Majestie's use," payable " at the feast of St. Thomas the Apos
tle."3 A condition named in some patents between 1636 and
1640 is that the patentee should erect a house within six months.4
The " James Citty " patents usually describe the grant as be
ing a part of a dividend of fifty acres, or more, situated outside
the liberties of the town.
Several patents issued under Cromwell were subsequently con
firmed by being re-issued under Charles II.
The transcripts of the patents are the sole remaining evidence
authoritatively fixing the initial spot of the nation's history, as
almost aB other records, including those of the early convey
ances, were burned during the War between the States.
The patents relating to " James Citty " are scattered through
nine ponderous volumes of MSS. Book I, on account of its an
tiquity, is the most interesting of the series. As shown by his
indorsement at the end of the book, the transcript was made by
Edward Harrison in 1683, or nearly a century before the United
States attained its independence. The handwriting is clear and
a This orthography is given in some of the earlier patents.
'Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book IV, p. 475.
* Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book IV, p. 475.

54 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
uniform ana to one familiar with the characters then employed,
is readily deciphered.
The abbreviation " y " for th in the and that does not appear
in this book, which includes the issues up to and during a part
of the year 1643. Its first occurrence is in Book VII, in the
patent to Edward Chilton, of 1683. The lower case ancient
script letter " p " frequently appears as an abbreviation for per
or par in the patents of the entire " James Citty " period.
The second volume is indorsed "Beverly," probably Peter
Beverly, who from 1692 to 1700 was clerk of the House of Bur
gesses, and in the latter year became its speaker. The book
was written in 1694. There are no indorsements in the other
books to show when they were written or the names of the
scriveners. The first two books were undoubtedly written at "James
Citty," and, after escaping the State house fire of 1698, and that
of the Capitol at Williamsburg about 1747, were probably moved
to Bichmond in 1780, when that city became the capital. They
have thus passed through two ordeals of fire and two wars and,
after silently witnessing many vicissitudes of fortune, rest in the
historic Capitol at Bichmond.
There does not appear to be any record of legislative enact
ment defining the limits of "James Citty" except one of
"Bacon's Laws," passed in 1676, by which those then existing
were extended to include the entire island.5 The above aet,
unfortunately, does not recite the previous limits. Shortly after
the Bacon uprising was suppressed and the Berkeley govern
ment re-instated, the above law was repealed.
Beverly wrote in 1705, that in 1620, the corporations, as they
were then styled, were bounded, and that one of the new record
books of transcripts contained a statement of Governor Argall
to the effect that he had a knowledge of the boundaries of
"James Citty." He, however, adds that "there was not to be
found one word of the charter or patent itself of the corpora-
0 Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 362.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 55
tion." " The patent to Captain John Harvey in 1624 shows that
the lower branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp " was the town's
eastern boundary.
The patents indicate that the town included nearly all of the
island above the " Head of Swamp," between James Eiver and
the Back Eiver (see map), and that the first and second ridges
formed, as it were, outlying districts. They show clearly that
after 1623, the most thickly settled part of the town was the
"New Towne," on the south shore of the island, below the
church. About the time of Bacon's Eebellion, according to "Bacon's
Proseedings," of unknown authorship, in the Burwell MSS.
coBection/ the town was situated "much about the midle of
the Sowth line, close upon the Eiver, extending east and west,
about 3 quarters of a mile." This description accords with its
location as determined from the patents and shown on the map
between the initial letters OS and G. The church tower, there
fore, stood near the western end of the town.
" The New Towne " was situated on the southern slope of the
same ridge as the tower ruin (the fourth) and extended east
from the first town of four acres, about three-eighths of a nule,
to the lower branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp." This area is
now mostly covered with orchards, in which considerable por
tions of the ground are filled with particles of brick and mortar
of former buildings, scattered by the plow.
Back Street was east of the church and at distances from the
south shore of the island varying from two hundred to six hun
dred feet. The parts of it located were about sixty feet wide/
and had the same general direction, east and west, as the high
way referred to in the patents as the "way along the Greate
Eiver," or "Maine Eiver," which constituted the front street
of the "New Towne." The two thoroughfares were connected
e History of the Present State of Virginia, p. 37.
7 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I.
8 Obtained by platting independently the tracts on opposite sides
of the street.

56 by cross lanes, referred to as highways. The Back Street lay
immediately in front of what is beBeved to have been the site
of the Jaquelin-Ambler mansion. It could not have been a
street in the modern signification of the word, with sidewalks
and pavements, for paving before the doors of houses, even in
" London Towne," was not introduced untU 1614. It seems to
have merged into the "old Greate Eoad," which led to the
head of the island and passed near the northeast corner of the
old churchyard, a few rods from the same corner of the present
one, near which there appear to be traces of a road.
Traces of the highway along the river-bank, bordered by its
gnarled and riven mulberries, lineal descendants, no doubt, of
some cited in several patents as reference trees, are stBl to be
seen. The planting of mulberry trees for feeding silkworms was
initiated in 1621, and made compulsory by statute. SUk culture
received attention as early as 1614, but the enterprise was never
a commercial success. Foreign workmen were imported to
teach silk making, and a present of silk was sent Charles II by
Sir WiBiam Berkeley in 1668."
Among the earlier residents of " the New Towne " were some
"people of qualitye" and note, including four governors, Sir
George Yeardley, Knight ; Sir Francis Wyatt, Knight ; Sir John
Harvey, Knight;" Mister, Governor and Doctor Pott," "Doc
tor of Physick " and " Physician General to the Colony ;" also
Captain Ealph Hamor, secretary of state and chronicler;
George Sandys, who, whUe there and residing at WUliam
Pierce's (see map), achieved a part of his work of turning into
» The present of silk, it is stated, was woven into a coronation robe
£or King Charles. As soon as the king graciously signified his
/acceptance of the above douceur, Sir William presented a petition
asking, as a special allowance, the customs duties on a ship's cargo
•of tobacco. The king adroitly parried this request by sending a
warrant for the allowance requested, but payable when Sir William
rshould send to England from Virginia a 300-ton ship laden with
tfiilk, hemp, flax, and potatoes. (Sainsbury's Abstracts, June 12,
1669.) It does not appear that the governor ever sent the above
shipload of commodities and received the reward.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.'T 57
English Ovid's Metamorphoses; Captain Eoger Smith, Captain
Eichard Stevens, who wounded George Harrison in a duel near
" James Citty," and George Menify, merchant and member of
the council, who married the relict of John Eolf e, whose second
wife was Pocahontas. The grounds of the above persons are
shown more or less accurately on the map.
Sir George Yeardley's grounds had an area of seven acres,
one rood. They were situated on the second ridge between the
branch of the swamp and the Back Eiver. The area of Gov
ernor Wyatt's tract is not known. It included the ground,
where, at a later day, stood the Jaquelin-Ambler mansion. Dr.
Pott first patented three acres and a few years later added nine
acres. Captain Eoger Smith's lot was four acres.
In 1665, there was a bridge across the branch of swamp near
the northwest corner of the former twelve acre tract of Governor
Pott,10 connecting the fourth and second ridges. There is a
causeway at the above point which may be the successor of the
bridge. This probably was the same bridge referred to in the
rendition of the Yeardley patent contained on page 68 of Neill's
Virginia Carolcrum.
Sir WBliam Berkeley resided at Jamestown during his first
term of office as governor, his residence being one of the brick
houses composing the first state house, which stood near the
south shore of the island, about one hundred yards east of the
eastern boundary of the Association's grounds. The same
building appears to have been used by Governor Bennett, who,
as the first governor under the Commonwealth, succeeded
Berkeley. Among the later residents of "the New Towne" were Cap
tain George Marable, John Barber, Eobert Castle, John Phips,
Thos. Woodhouse, John Fitchett, John Knowles and Eev. Wil
liam Mays. A list of the last residents after Bacon's Bebellion
would include the names of Henry Hartwell, clerk of the court,
John Howard, Eichard Holder, Lieutenant-Colonel Chiles, John
10 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book V, p. 63,

58 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
Page, and although last, not least, Wm. Sherwood, the epitaph
on whose tombstone in the little churchyard tells that he was
"Born In the Parish Of White ChappeB Near London. A
Great Sinner Waiting For A IoyfuB Eesurrection." Sherwood,
during Bacon's Eebellion, was an adherent of Sir WiBiam Berke
ley. He was attorney-general, 1678-1680. In 1694 he was the
proprietor of upwards of three hundred acres of land at the
head of the island, including the outlying extreme western part
of the town above the upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp,"
and a small part of the " New Towne " adjacent to Back Street.
The elevated position of the part of the fourth ridge north of
the Back Street, between the site of the Jaquelin- A m bier mes
suage and the grounds of the Association for the Preservation
of Virginia Antiquities, should have made it much sought after
for residential purposes. There are some indications of there
being house foundations along the line of the Back Street. The
names of their occupants can probably never be ascertained, as
there are apparently no documents containing that information.
In the address of ex-President Tyler, deUvered at Jamestown
in 1857 at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the first
landing of the English, he remarked in referring to the destruc
tion of the town by Bacon in 1676 : " The town was partially
rebuilt, and many of its houses remained during my early novi
tiate at WiUiam and Mary CoBege" (1802-1807). "They
stood in a connected street running east and west from near the
present dwelling-house (the Jaquelin-Ambler mansion) to the
ruins of the church."
The foundations just mentioned probably belonged to the
buildings alluded to by President Tyler. " The connected street
running east and west " undoubtedly was the Back Street.
" The New Towne " was always inhabited until " James
Citty" ceased to exist, the names of various owners of land in
that quarter, belonging to different generations, being shown by
the patents. Individuals bearing the surnames of many of the
former townspeople are still to be found within one hundred
miles of the site of " James Citty."

West End of the Town.
fEE positions of land grants east of the church tower ruin
being determined and the " New Towne " accurately
located, investigation was made for the area west of the
above ancient landmark. This resulted in placing
approximately several early grants, previously referred to, near
the head of the island on its western shore and in establishing
quite satisfactorily the situation of the Bauldwin grant of 1656,
which locates Block House Hill, also in showing the positions
of the grants of John Howard, Bobert Beverley, the historian,
Eichard Lawrence, the compatriot of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr.,
Edward Chilton, attorney-general, Colonel Nathaniel Bacon the
elder, Lieutenant Edward Boss, Colonel Philip Ludwell the
first,1 and Philip Ludwell, Esq. (the second), of 1694. The
last named grant fixes the position of the last state house.
The tract described is an undated patent to John Howard of
about 1690/ which Governor Sir Francis Nicholson failed to
sign, but which was signed by Governor Sir Edmund Andros in
1694, is approximately located by the present churchyard in-
closure (see map).
From the above patent it is learned that the direction of the
"old Greate Boad" near and north of the churchyard was N.
27%° W. The marks of this road are visible at the above
locaBty, as before mentioned. Its objective point was probably
the isthmus. The parts of the road shown on the map not
fixed by the patents are tentative.
1 Philip I was member of the Virginia Council for many years;
was expelled therefrom in 1679, reinstated in 1683 and again expelled
in 1687 and disqualified for holding office; governor of Carolina
16S9-'92; subsequently resided in London and died in England after
1716. Philip II, born 1666, died 1720. Speaker of House and mem
ber of council. Buried at Jamestown.
a Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82.
[59]

60 From the Howard patent it is learned that Colonel Nathaniel
Bacon, Senior, the second cousin of the patriot of the same
name, owned a lot adjoining the Howard tract on the west. It
would also appear from agreeing in bearing, that its northern
boundary was part of one of the southern boundaries of part of
a lot that once belonged to the scholarly Lawrence, sequestered
on account of its owner's participation in Bacon's EebeBion,
and bought by Colonel Bacon, Senior, in 1683 — possibly be
cause it adjoined his tract, which was in front of the present
tower ruin. Lawrence's house, according to T. M.'s account of
Bacon's Bebellion/ was one of the finest in the town. The re
mainder of the Lawrence tract probably extended east of that
bought by Bacon. On using the common boundary line of the
Howard and Lawrence plats, and placing the former in what
appears to be its proper position near the graveyard, the latter
is found to have for its northern boundary the branch of " Pitch
and Tarr Swamp," which accords with the description in the
patent. The patent of the Lawrence tract* fixes the position, as its
western boundary, of a grant to Eobert Beverley in 1694, which
in turn furnishes the position of " The Maine Cart road," prob
ably another name for "the old Greate Eoad," leading, most
probably, past the well about one rod east of the state house
foundations on the third ridge, towards the isthmus and Block
House Hill.
A correspondence of the course of the western line of a tract
granted to William Edwards ° in 1690 with that of the eastern
line of the Chilton tract locates the Edwards tract, and through
it the western line of a lot of Nathaniel Bacon, Senior. The
eastern boundary of the Bacon tract, as has been pointed out,
was the Howard tract. Bacon's lot, therefore, occupied the
greater part of the eastern hab! of the space on which stands the
Confederate fort of 1861.

8 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I.
* Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VII, p. 300.
'Ibid, Book VIII, p. 42.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 61
The locating of the third and fourth state houses was accom
plished by determining the approximate positions of two land
grants on a modern map of the head of the island, followed by
probing and excavating.
Extracts from the patents are as follows:
Phillip Ludwell, AprB 20, 1694, — V/2 acres. Va. Land Patent
Eecords, Book VIII, p. 315.
"One Acre and halfe of Land adjoyning to the Euins of his
three Brick houses between the State house and Country house
in James City which Land is bounded Viz. beginning Neare
Pitch and Tarr Swamp Eight Cheynes of the East'most end of
the said houses and running by the said end south two degrees
westerly Sixteen cheynes thence North Eighty Eight degrees
Westerly three and three quarter Cheynes thence North two
degrees Easterly sixteen Cheynes by the other End of the said
houses and thence South Eighty Eight degrees Easterly three
and three quarter cheynes to the place it begun."
Edward Chilton, April 16, 1683, — 2 acres, 17 chains. Va.
Land Patent Eecords, Book VII, p. 292.
" bounded, viz : from Col. Phillip Ludwells corner stake south
eighty-eight degrees, easterly partly along his Honrs line ninety
fouer chaines, thence south f ouer degrees, and an halfe westerly,
partly along an old ditch twelve chaines and an halfe down
James river bank and along under ye said Hill to a stake neer
ye brick fort, and thence north sixteen degrees easterly seaven
cha : and an halfe to ye first stake."
The tract of Philip LudweB being platted, its most probable
location, after correcting for declination the bearings of its
Bnes as given in the patent, was found to be on the third ridge,
near the then southern end of the seawall. This was decided upon
after considerable study and reflection, taking into account the
distance from "Pitch and Tarr Swamp" of the crest of the
third ridge, which appeared to be a good site for the three
houses shown by the patent to have been on the tract. Although
the above location seemed to be the only one which would meet

62 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
the requirements of the patent, it was not finaBy accepted until,
as shown later, it was confirmed by further investigation.
The tract of Edward Chilton was next platted. A clue to
its location was furnished by one of its boundary lines terminat
ing " neer ye brick fort," which fort, in 1688, was described by
the Eev. John Clayton as being situated in " a vale," above the
town, and consequently, above the church tower. A probable
position for the brick fort, fulfilling the conditions imposed
by the above description, seemed to be in the extension westward
from the river bank of the swale between the third and fourth
ridges. This view was confirmed by the discovery, by sounding,
of piles of masonry in the shallow water at the locality named.
The Chilton tract thus being approximately located with
reference to the brick fort, valuable information was furnished
as to the character and direction of the shore line, a " HiB "
[high bank] lying about east and west. A most important and
interesting feature, however, is yet to be noted, viz., that when
the Chilton tract was given its most probable location on the
map, it was found to connect with the assumed location of Philip
Ludwell's tract. Moreover, the northern boundary of the Chil
ton tract which passed "partly along his Hon'rs line" (Hon.
Philip Ludwell) is shown by the patents to have the same mag
netic bearing as the southern boundary of the PhUip Ludwell
tract of 1694. The grantee of the 1694 tract, entitled PhBip
Ludwell, Esq., was undoubtedly the son of the Hon. Philip
Ludwell referred to in the Chilton patent. It seems probable
that Philip Ludwell the second received part of his grant of
1694, the southern, from his father, who owned it in 1683, and
possibly also the three brick houses, for the patent implies that
the houses belonged to the second LudweB before its date of
issue in 1694.
The patent of 1694 states that Philip Ludwell, Esq., had land
due him for the transportation of one person to Virginia, and he
naturally selected a new piece adjacent to that which he then
held, probably north of the houses, receiving a grant for the
new and old tracts combined. Instances are found in the old

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 63
patent records of a patent being issued covering earlier grants
that were contiguous to that acquired at the time of issuing the
later patent.
The proximity of the first Philip Ludwell's property to the
state house may account, to some extent, for the interest which
he had in rebuBding the state house destroyed by Bacon, for
which work he was, in fact, the contractor.
The plats of Chilton and Ludwell being thus united, trial
was made to ascertain if the combined plats could be better loca
ted when platted separately. It was found, however, that no-
change could be made that would improve the first location,
and the author concluded that the time had arrived to verify
his work by examining the ground. An opportunity for doing
this occurred in January, 1903, when, to his great satisfaction,
and that of a co-worker, the steel probe used for exploring the
ground, struck a number of buried foundation walls. The
subsequent work of the Association for the Preservation of Vir
ginia Antiquities, under his direction, has confirmed his views,
the foundations discovered being within less than twenty-five feet
of their position as indicated by the LudweB patent, and having
the same width collectively as given for the Ludwell tract. More
over, after correcting for variation of the needle, the different
walls were found to have about the same azimuths as the
boundaries of the LudweB tract, given in the patent.
Adjoining the Ludwell house foundations on the east are
others agreeing in a general way with the meagre descriptions
extant of the state house, and to the west others, which are, of
course, the remains of the " Country House " of 1694.
Further references to the above state house and brick fort are
made under their respective captions.
Near the lower extremity of the seawall, and just outside of it,
formerly stood a brick buBding, which Eichard Bandolph stated
in 1837 was reputed to have been a powder magazine.8 This
buBding was referred to in ex-President Tyler's address at
6 Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, p. 303.

64

THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.

Jamestown in 1857/ previously quoted from, as the prison
house of Opechancanough, brother of the great Powhatan. He
also stated that its cellar had been formerly used for the storage
of powder. If used as a magazine, uncommonly bad judgment
was displayed in placing it where it would have been such a
good target for a hostile fleet and where also in event of an ex
plosion, it would have damaged or destroyed the buUdings on
the third ridge. The allusion to it as the prison of Opechan
canough is suggestive of its being used as a jaU, although prob
ably not for the Indian chief who died a captive at Jamestown
about two years after the massacre of 1644.
In 1891 the eastern foundation waB was all that remained of
the reputed " magazine." It was then located and found to be
about thirty-two feet long. If it was a prison, it probably was
not built until after 1685, in which year the subject of building a
prison was brought up in the Assembly; if a magazine, it was
probably erected at an earlier date, possibly about the time that
the brick fort, hereinafter described, was constructed.
Incidentally, it may be stated that the third ridge was used as
a camp ground for Confederate soldiers in 1861.
7 Celebration of the 250th anniversary of the English settlement at
Jamestown, May 13, 1857.

Church Buildings and Original Graveyard of
the "Mother Christian Towne."
. NE of the vexed questions concerning the first settlement
is the position of the first churchyard or graveyard. It
is learned from several old chronicles that the first
church was within the triangular fort. The map of the
Virginia settlement, procured by Zuniga, for Phflip III of
Spain, in September, 1608, previously referred to, shows a
church thus inclosed.
The first church, a rude hut "covered with rafts, sedge and
earth," was burned within eight months of its erection. The
Becond, erected in 1608, most probably on the same site as the
first, must also have been a flimsy makeshift, for it is referred to
by Sir Thomas Gates, two years after its construction, as being
in an unserviceable condition, shortly after which it was recon
structed by Lord La Warr. Its dimensions in plan were sixty
feet long by twenty-four feet wide, with a steeple at the west
end. As the greater part of the triangular fort, as has been pointed
out, has been washed away, the site of the second church is now
probably under water. No vestige of its foundations have been,
or probably ever will be discovered.
When, in 1617, Captain Argall arrived at "James Towne,"
he discovered the church which La Warr had renovated seven
years before in ruins, a storehouse being in use for divine ser
vice. During his administration, i. e., from May, 1617, to
AprB, 1619, the third church, whose dimensions were " 50 by 20
foote," was erected.
In 1639 Governor Sir John Harvey wrote to the Privy Coun-
cB : " Such hath bene our Indeavour herein, that out of our
owne purses wee have largely contributed to the building of a
brick church, and both Masters of Shipps and others of the
5-j.t. r65]

66 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
ablest Planters have liberally by our persuation underwritt to
this worke." *
No information is available as to when the building of this,
the fourth church, was begun or completed, but the latter is sup
posed to have been accomplished by about 1647. It was burned
in 1676.
There is apparently no evidence as to whether this building
was entirely or partly destroyed by the fire. It is probable that
only the wood work, i. e., the roof and window and door frames,
were burned. There is no information when the building was
rehabilitated. It is presumed, however, to have been done
during the partial rebuilding of the town between 1676 and
1686. The buBding was apparently used until about the end
of the 18th century, about which time its walls fell, and the
bricks composing them were used by Mr. WBliam Lee, of Green
Spring, and Mr. John Ambler, of Jamestown, to inclose a part
of the old burial ground. The greater part of the graveyard
walls are stiB standing.
In his Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Bishop
Meade states, with reference to the foundations of the last brick
church, which he measured during a visit to Jamestown Island
shortly before 1856, that the plan of the church was that of a
basilica, whose accurately measured dimensions were twenty-
eight by fifty-six feet.2
In the summer of 1901, the above foundations which adjoin
the eastern waB of the tower ruins, were uncovered by Mr. John
Tyler, Jr., under the auspices of the Association for the Pres
ervation of Virginia Antiquities, to which society the surround
ing tract of twenty-three acres belongs.8 The average length
and width within the walls are fifty and six-tenths feet and
twenty-two and seven-tenths feet, respectively.
1 Letter from Governor and Council in Virginia to Privy Council.
McDonald Papers, Vol. II, pp. 233-260.
"Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Vol. I, p. III.
» Donated to the above association by Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Bar
ney, in 1895.

I Belfry B
Loop -hole a H^
ni n ¦

_B_V

Explanation:
Fig*. i= Foundation Plan of
Fourth Church Structure
Inclosing* Fragments of"
Foundations of Third.
Broken Lines Show Cor
rect Positions of But
tresses.
Fig. ;* Front of Tower,
Fig. 3 Section on Line A-B.
Fig. 4 •» »» *> C~D.

RUINS OF
CHURCH STRUCTURES
ERECTED AT
IAMES CITTY, VA.
ABOUT 1617 AND 1639.,

SCALE.
2 . 6 S jo 1ZF1.

The SHeaTOld 'James Tomj&S07-J698.

Copyright, l$OT,by Samuel 'H.Yonge

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 67
In clearing away from around the foundations the mould of
more than a century, parts of the foundations of the side walls
of a narrower building, whose inside width was about twenty
feet, were uncovered. They consist of a footing of cobble-stones
one foot thick, capped by a one-brick wall. The slenderness of
the foundations indicates that their superstructure was of timber,
as in the days of substantial building to which they belonged,
they would have been regarded as too light for one of brick.
It wBl be observed that the width of a building matching the
foundations would be the same as given for the church built
during Argall's term as deputy-governor. As only the western
ends of the foundations of the two side walls remain, the length
of the building they supported cannot be learned.
In making the before-mentioned excavations it is reported
that three distinct sets of floor tiles were found at different
levels across the east end of the building, formerly belonging to
a chancel five and one-half feet by twenty-two feet, indicating
that there were three church structures on the same site. The
lowest layer of tiles probably belonged to the third church and,
in that case, if its end waBs were inclosed in the same manner
as its side walls, which seems quite likely, the length of the
third church would have been about fifty feet.
As the same site was used for the three church buildings
erected after 1617, the churchyard, which was by custom the
principal burial ground, most probably was never changed, and
was probably used even before that year. The finding of a
human skeleton, while excavating the foundations, crossed by
a waB of the brick church near its southeastern corner, shows
that there was a burial ground at its site before the first brick
church was built (1639-1647), and possibly even before the
building of the timber church about 1618, which covered almost
aB of the ground occupied by its successor.
Prom what has preceded there should be no room for doubt
as to the lighter foundations being those of the third church
structure, that built under Argall, and in use when Yeardley
came to the colony in 1619. The inclosure of one structure by

68 THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
the other suggests that, while the later church of brick was
being constructed around the earlier one of timber, the latter
was used for service.
As the marriage of John Bolfe to Pocahontas occurred in
1614, it would appear that the ceremony could not have been
performed in the third church, whose site, as shown above, was
subsequently occupied by the brick churches, but in the second
structure, 60 by 24 feet in plan, which was reconstructed by
Lord La "Warr, and situated within the triangular fort a short
distance, probably one hundred and thirty yards, above the
church tower. The third church, however, was undoubtedly
the one used for the convening of the first American legislature
by Governor Yeardley, on July 30, 1619.4
Although the first and second churches were within the tri
angular fort, it is not probable that the graveyard was. To have
lived continually in such close proximity to ^heir probable ulti
mate resting place would have been as distasteful to the settlers
as to most people of this day. Moreover, the available area of
the acre inclosure, as already demonstrated, would have been
fully occupied by the buildings and streets mentioned by Stra-
chey. Interments would have been made near, but outside of
the triangular fort. By the time the third church was erected,
about 1618, the burial ground, in consequence of the frightful
mortality, must have grown to considerable proportions, and no
site could have seemed more appropriate for it than the ground
contiguous to that which had been consecrated as " God's
Acre." On the occasion of the celebration at Jamestown of the
bicentenary of the advent of the English,5 "as it were by
general consent the discovery of the oldest stone became an
object of general emulation." * * * "beyond 1682, nothing
legible could be traced, but from the freshness of the marble
'¦Colonial Records of Virginia, Extra Senate (State) Document of
1874. 5 Report on the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at Jamestown, Va.,
page 9.

IN THE CHURCHYARD
The sycamore tree in the middle ground grew between the tombs of Rev. James Blair, Commissary to the Bishop of London, and his
wife and shattered the stones. The injury being done to the tombs was observed at the Bi-Centenary celebration in J 807,

THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 69
bearing this date contrasted with the surrounding masses of
mutBated and mouldering decay, it was the general impression
that this stone was comparatively young." As, ordinarily,
gravestones do not become illegible in less than one hundred and
fifty to two hundred years, the assumption is not unreasonable
that some of those seen at Jamestown in 1807 belonged to the
same period as the third church, although the earliest known
date on any tombstone in Virginia is 1637." There is very good
evidence that until about the 18th century many of the tomb
stones used in Virginia were shipped from across seas.
It is stated by some who were present at Sunday services held
for the island garrison in the old churchyard in 1861 that there
was then a sufficient number of tombstones to serve as seats for
the command of two hundred men. Only a few complete stones
remain, and the fragments of others show what has been the
common fate of nearly all.
Beference is now made to two grants to " Thomas Hampton,
Clerke," in 1639 and 1644.' Both tracts are described as being
on a ridge of land behind the church, the earlier and smaller
between two swamps and the later "containing from the East-
ermost bounds Westerly one hundred and twelve paces five foot
to the pace and running the same Breadth Northerly to the back
river." The later grant may have been made to include the
earner, a practice which, as previously noted, was common to
the period. In any event, both grants were most probably upon
the same ridge.
Several patents are employed to locate Hampton's two tracts,
as foBows: to John Bauldwin in 1656 for 15 acres 69 poles, 5
acres 69 poles of which were " at the old block house " and ten
acres bounded " Easterly upon Mr. James' land Northerly upon
the back river" [marsh?], and the smaller tract, "West upon
the Main river and South upon the slash which lyeth between
the State house and the said Mr. James." James' western
8 Colonel Wm. Perry's at Westover. Colonel Perry was member of
House of Burgesses and subsequently member of the Council.
7 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book II, p. 105.

70 THE SITE OE OLD
boundary was a meridian passing " by Priggett landing." 8 The
approximate position of "Priggett Landing" is learned from
the probable position of a grant to Bichard Clarke in 1646."
In 1644 Eichard Sanders patented an acre "bounded west
upon the river East upon ye marsh North upon the block house
land and South upon the Land of Edward Challos." In the
same year Edward Challis received a grant of an acre bounded
"West upon the river East upon the marsh North upon the
blockhouse Land and South towards the land of Badulph Sprag
gon." The word " upon " in the phrase " upon the blockhouse
land" in the Challos patent should be towards, for ChaBos is
given as the southern boundary of Sanders in the hitter's patent.
Spraggon's land, an acre, patented in 1644, was bounded
" South upon the land of Geo. Gilbert North towards the Way
leading towards the Mayne West upon the river and East to
wards the land of Mr. Hampton." Bauldwin's patent shows
approximately the former site of Block House HB1, below which
was the land of Sanders, adjoining whom on the south was
ChaBos. Next below came a space, probably unoccupied ex
cept by part of the highway, below which, but not adjoining,
was Spraggon, aB about as shown on the " Map of lames Citty."
Arguments have been presented for the sites of the churches
used after 1617 and of the graveyard pertaining to them before
that year, as being adjacent to the tower ruin at the eastern side
of the four-acre paled town.
The description of an acre granted to John White in 1644
reads, "bounded West upon the Church Yard East upon the
land apprtaining to the State House North towards the land
of Mr. Thomas Hampton and South upon James Eiver the
Length being twenty three poles and breadth Seaven poles
almost." The word "towards" in the White patent and also in the
Spraggon patent with reference to Hampton's land, shows that
the last named was situated north of the first and east of the-
8 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IV, p. 196.
'Ibid, Book II, p. 47.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 71
second, but in each case at some indefinite, but not remote dis
tance, the intervening land not being patented. By projecting
series of lines east from Spraggon and north from White they
will intersect on the second ridge about where the Hampton
land is indicated on the map.
On account of the peculiar wording of the parts of the Hamp
ton patents, describing the relative positions of the tracts on a
ridge, and the church, viz. ; " behind the church," it is not clear
at first glance whether the church and the tracts were on the
same, or different ridges. If on the same, the second, the
church would have been mentioned in Spraggon's patent, whose
land was west of Hampton's. No allusion to the church, how
ever, occurs in that or any other patent on or near the western
shore of the island. The particle "behind" is not understood
as meaning in the rear of the church's back waB, but signifying
on the opposite side from where the writer stood or imagined
he was standing, or possibly as having reference to some other
object understood but not mentioned, e. g., the churchyard or
river bank. The above is a sample of the vague and inaccurate
expressions appearing in some of the patents and too often used
at the present day.
As, according to its description, the White tract was on the
southern bank of the island and the churchyard adjoined it on
the west, the latter was also on the river bank. Finally, until
1644 the first ridge belonged to the block house, and the land
at the western end of the second ridge has been accounted for
in that year ; the third ridge was occupied by buildings from an
early day (1666), and, therefore, most probably never contained
the church or graveyard ; all of which also goes to show that the
church and graveyard were not on the western bank of the
island. All of the available evidence pertaining to the church,
therefore, proves that it and the graveyard, in 1644, were on the
fourth ridge and on the southern water front at the old tower
ruin. Bishop Meade states in effect that the graves near the tower
ruin inclosed by a brick wall, before referred to, near the close

72 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
of the eighteenth century, cover but a third of the original
graveyard, which had an area of a half acre. Although the
graves are in very close order, each one apparently occupying,
on an average, about thirty-two square feet, it is evident that a
half-acre would have sufficed but for a smaB fraction of those
who died at "James Citty."10
In 1896, as before described, the remnant of the original head
land, which still shielded the adjacent river bank below it from
abrasion, was removed to bring the shore to a fair line for re
ceiving protection work, constructed in that year. It is credibly
stated that when the bank thus exposed was undermined by the
waves, several human skeletons lying in regular order, east and
west, about two hundred feet west of the tower ruin were un
covered. On account of their nearness to the tower it seems
quite probable that the skeletons were in the original church
yard. One of the skuBs had been perforated by a musket baB
and several buckshot, which it stBl held, suggesting a nrilitary
execution. Soon after being exposed to the air the skeletons
crumbled. Prom the evidence of the White patent and the positions of
the skeletons, it would appear that the churchyard extended
from the junction of the Back Street with the "old Greate
Boad," northeast of the church, to near the water side and up
the latter, including a part of the ground subsequently covered
by the Confederate fort. Thus situated, it would have had an
area of about one and one-half acres.
Judging from the brick bond of the church tower it belonged
originally to the fourth of the five churches, all of which, except
the latest one, are more or less briefly referred to in the avaBable
annals of the colonists.
The brick church would to-day be regarded as a very plain and
unpretentious chapel. It was rectangular in plan, having the
customary high pitched roof on both nave and tower, the
aisle paved with brick and the chancel with tiles. The tower,
10 Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Vol. I, p. III.

THE TOWER RUIN

THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE." 73
situated at the western end, on account of being dispro
portionately large in comparison with the rest of the struc
ture, was the prominent feature. On account of its solidity, it
was not materially injured by the conflagration of 1676.
Arched doorways through the front and back walls of the first
story formed the main entrance. The second story openings
were most probably a window in the west wall and a door in the
east waB, the latter opening into a gallery across the western
end of the nave, as in the " old Brick Church " at Smithfield,
Va. The third story was probably lighted only by six loop holes,
two in the front and two in each side wall. The loop holes
indicate that the intention of the builders of the tower was to
make it defensible against Indian attack. As, with the defeat
and death of Opechancanough in 1644, the fear of such attacks
occurring at Jamestown should have almost entirely dis
appeared, it seems likely that the tower was designed and prob
ably buBt before or about that time. The brick work formerly
separating the openings of the first and second stories having
broken away, the front and back walls now have high portals
extending to about twenty and nineteen feet, respectively, above
the ground.
The brick work of the tower and foundation is in so-called
English bond, quaintly embelished, after the fashion of the
period, with glazed headers. The walls of the ruin were recently
strengthened by tie rods, with ornamental washers of cruciform
shape. It is a dignified old pile, of sombre detail, and originally
had a height of about forty-six feet, to the peak of the spire
that surmounted it. It is approximately eighteen feet square in
plan, with walls three feet thick at the base, diminishing by
offsets in the inner faces at each story to about seventeen inches
at the belfry.
Within nave and chancel are interred many unknown dead,
and, lying with its head to the north, is an ironstone tablet from
which are missing inlaid brasses with which it was embossed.
In its present position it does not apear to mark a tomb, for it
would thus show a violation of the time-revered custom, form-

74 THE SITE OF OLD
erly universally observed in Christian burials, to place the feet
towards the rising sun. Whose "death in life" it commemo
rated will probably ever remain one of the unsolved mysteries of
this mysterious island. This tomb stone is probably the only
one in this country that had brasses. In the upper sinister
corner was the escutcheon of the deceased. The scroB in the
upper dexter corner was probably inscribed with a text or short
prayer. It is conjectured by some that the stone formerly
marked the grave of Governor, Sir George Yeardley, Knight,
who died at Jamestown Nov. 12, 1627. The Eev. John
Clough whose grave stone is shown on the plan of the church,
was condemned to death by Nathaniel Bacon, "the Eebel," but
was not executed.
The "James Citty" brick church resembled the "old Brick
Church " about five miles from Smithfield, Isle of Wight
County, Virginia, modernly known as St. Luke's. The latter,
however, is a larger building than was the former. The points
in common between the two churches are a tower at the western
end, and a chancel door on the south side, near the eastern end
of the nave. The brick work of St. Luke's church, however, is
laid in so-called Flemish bond, and its tower has quoins at the
corners, broad friezes at each story and under the eaves and its
exterior faces broken by offsets at each story.

THE MYSTERIOUS TABLET.

The tablet is 5 feet 7% inches long by 3 1 x/± inches wide. The black
surfaces show the channelings in the stone formerly filled with metal. The
inscription plate was about J 9 by 10)4 inches, and the height of the draped
figure 24% inches.

The Colonial Legislature.
J HEN Captain Smith became president of the colony, in
1608, he styled the meeting of the colonists which he
called to announce that thereafter those who would
not work must starve, a " generall assembly." *
A peculiar feature of the first colonial legislature, and appar
ently of those of many ensuing years, was that both of its
branches, the governor's council and the House of Burgesses,
met in joint session, after the fashion of the Scotch Parliament.
According to Beverley, this custom obtained until 1680, when
Governor Culpeper, " taking advantage of some disputes among
them," caused the two bodies to hold their sessions in separate
apartments,2 the couneB being presided over by the governor
and the House of Burgesses by a speaker of its own election.
It was resolved at a session of the House of Burgesses in
March, 1658, that "they" — "all propositions and lawes" —
" shall be first discussed among the Burgesses only " * * * " in
private" * * * "and not in presence of the Governour and
Council."8 The above action of the burgesses, evincing a
desire to assert the independence of their body, was a precursor
of the discontinuance of joint sessions, above noted by Beverley.
From what follows, the custom of holding joint sessions
apparently had been discontinued before 1680, although it had
been customary for two of the members of the council to attend
the sessions of the burgesses, as shown in " T. M.'s " * account
of Bacon's Bebellion.
1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 149.
"History of the present State of Virginia, by Robert Beverley, p.
187. "Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 497.
* The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in
Virginia, in the Years 1675-1676, p. 13. — Force's Historical Tracts,
Vol. I. — " T. M." is supposed by Campbell and Fiske to have been
[75]

76 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
The ostensible purpose of the presence of the councillors was
to assist the burgesses in conducting their proceedings in a par
liamentary manner. The real object, obviously, was to keep the
governor fully apprised of all that occurred in this democratic
and often intractable body. This was fully understood by the
burgesses, some of whom on the occasion referred to by "T.
M.," manifested their unwBlingness to have the councBlors
present. Prior to its session in September, 1632, the colonial legislature
of Virginia was styled " The General Assembly." Beginning
with the above session, it was called " The Grand Assembly,"
which title it bore untfl the session of June, 1680, when the
former appeBation was revived.
Thomas Mathews, son of Samuel Mathews, governor of Virginia,
1657-1659. (Campbell's History of Virginia, p. 284, and Fiske's Old
Virginia and her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 66.) The available evidence
is quite conclusive that " T. M." was Thomas Mathew, and not
Thomas Mathews, a son of the governor. See Notes and Queries, by
W. G. Stanard, Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. I. (1893-1894),
pp. 201 and 202. He was a timid, cautious man, who unwillingly
became the representative of Stafford county in the first Assembly
after the " Long Assembly."

"James Citty" State Houses.
[HE first General Assembly, as previously stated, was con
vened in the third church, referred to in a preceding]
chapter as having its foundations inclosed by those of its
successor, the first brick church, erected between 1639
and 1647.
The available information concerning the various buildings
used for subsequent meetings of the legislature and for holding
courts is too incomplete, meagre and obscure to be reduced to a
succinct and entirely satisfactory statement. Following are
deductions from the available data pertinent to the subject,
which are given in subsequent pages :
During about the first two decades after 1619 there were at
least twelve sessions of the legislature. They were probably
held either in the third church or at the governor's house.
There were also held during the above period sessions of the
court and meetings of the governor and council. From the
latter the proclamations of the governor that were intended to
take the place of legislative enactments, were probably promul
gated.1 During the next six decades, while " James Citty " remained
the seat of government, there were apparently four different
state house buildings, aB of which were burned. The time they
were occupied collectively amounted to about forty-three years.
During the intervals between the burning of the several state-
houses and the acquiring of new ones, amounting in the aggre
gate approximately to seventeen years, taverns were used for
the meetings of the Assembly and the sessions of the courts.
As in April, 1641, the colonial government purchased from
ex-Governor Harvey, who about a year before was adjudged a
bankrupt, one of his houses, known as the courthouse, the
1Hening,s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 120.
[77]

78 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
courts and meetings of the governor and council were no doubt
held there, and probably also the meetings of the whole legis
lature. The above buildhig, therefore, most probably consti
tuted the first state house.
In June, 1642, the Grand Assembly presented Governor
Berkeley with two houses and a tract of land adjacent to them,
at "James Citty." Between the above year and 1655, Gov
ernor Berkeley erected a house adjoining on the west the first
state house, which thus became the middlemost of three houses,
all having the same dimensions in plan, viz., forty by twenty
feet, and forming a block with a frontage on the river of sixty
feet and a depth of forty feet. The block was srxty-seven feet
from the southern bank of the island and about forty-five yards
below the present wharf. The bank probably having receded
slightly, its site would now be somewhat nearer the present bank
line. The middle house of the block was used as a state house for
about thirteen years longer, or until some time between March,
1655, and June, 1656, when it would seem to have been burned.
After the burning of the above building two courts were held in
a tavern kept by Thomas Woodhouse.
The available information about the second state house is scant
and indirect. The building appears to have been acquired some
time before October, 1656. All that is known of it is learned
from a reference to it in a patent of the above year from which
it appears to have been situated on the fourth ridge. It appar
ently was used for but three or four years, and then burned.
During the ensuing five years, or untB about 1665, the
colony's affairs seem to have been transacted in part, if not
entirely, in taverns belonging to Thomas Woodhouse and Thomas
Hunt, situated on the river bank about one hundred and three
hundred yards respectively, east of the first state house. About
the above year a house was purchased or built by the colonial
government on the third ridge about two hundred and forty
yards northwest of the brick church, and this served as the

THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 79
state house until burned by Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., in September,
1676. During the ten years following, or until about 1686, the
expedient of using taverns for meetings of the legislature was
again resorted to. In the above year the re-building of the
state house was completed. As it was on the site of its prede
cessor, it most probably had the same proportions, which in
plan were about seventy-four feet long and twenty feet wide,
within the walls. This was the last state house building
erected at "James Citty." It was occupied for about twelve
years, and was burned in the fall of 1698. The Assembly held
its last session at "James Citty," in April, 1699, when it was
decreed to move the capital to Williamsburg.
Subjoined are the data on which the foregoing is based.
The earliest available evidence of the colony's intention to
build a state house appears in a letter from its governor, Sir
John Harvey, Knight, and his council to the Privy Council,
dated January 18, 1639, in which it is stated that by the king's
command a levy had been raised for the above purpose.3 One
year later, during the session of the Grand Assembly beginning
January 6, 1639-40,3 an act was passed providing for defraying
the cost of building a state house by a poll assessment of two
pounds of tobacco.
On April 7, 1641, about fifteen months after the passage of
the above act, Sir John Harvey conveyed to the colonial gov
ernment, for 15,700 pounds of tobacco, to be paid the following
January,4 " aB that capital messuage or tenement now used for
a court house late in the tenure of Sir John Harvey, Knt.,
" McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 249.
'Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 226. — The acts of several of the
Assemblies between 1619 and 1642 are not known to be in existence.
They are only known to have been framed by allusions to them in
acts passed at other sessions, contained in Hening's Statutes, and
from being mentioned in the land patents, in official correspondence,
and in the minutes of the London Company.
4 The poll assessment of January, 1640, would have become due
January, 1641.

80 THE SITE OF OLD
situate and being within James City Island in Virginia with the
old house and granary, garden and orchard as also one piece or
plot of ground lying and being on the west side of the said cap
ital and messuage as the same is now inclosed."6 The above
conveyance shows that the court had been holding its sessions
in a house owned by Sir John Harvey, and it seems quite likely
that the assessment of January, 1639-40, was expended in bay
ing Harvey's houses and lot, one of the former being the court
house. It is more than possible that the Grand Assembly had
also been meeting in the same house. It seems most probable
that the above building was the one mentioned in patents
referred to below as "the old state house," whose location is
given further on.
In a letter of instructions from King Charles I to Governor
Berkeley and the Colonial CouneB in August, 1641, the building
of a state house is ordered.
By an act of Assembly passed in June, 1642, two houses and
an orchard "belonging to the colony" were presented to Gov
ernor Berkeley. This aet was confirmed by another passed at
the session of March, 1642.°
In February, 1643, a patent was issued to Captain Eobert
Hutchinson, burgess from "James Citty," for one and one-half
acres situated on the south shore of the island and bounded
west in part " towards " the state house.7 It appears from the
Hutchinson patent that by 1643 the previous acts of Assembly
for procuring a state house had gone into effect, and that the
building was on the south shore of the island.
5 Transcripts of Miscellaneous MSS., by Conway Robinson, p. 188.
6 Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 267.
7 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 944.
Hutchinson's patent reads " bounded South upon the river North
towards Pasby Hayes, West upon the land of John Osborne &
"towards the State House." As the tract could not have been
situated on the southern bank of the island and at the same time
been in a southerly direction from Paspahegh town, which was on
the main land above the island, either some other locality named
Pasby Hayes was referred to or an error made in describing the
'tract or transcribing the patent.

THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 81
In August, 1644, a patent previously quoted from was issued
to John White for one acre of land lying along the south shore
of the island, between the churchyard on the west and the state
house land on the east.8 This locates the state house with
reference to the churchyard in 1644, whose position has already
been determined, and places the western boundary of the state
house grounds about twelve yards below the present wharf, or
about seventy yards below the eastern boundary of the land now
owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia
Antiquities. On March 30, 1655, Sir William Berkeley sold to Bichard
Bennett, who had succeeded him as governor in 1652, his house,
"the westernmost of the three brick houses," which the deed
recites the grantor had built.9 The deed, however, does not
show that the ground on which the house stood and that adjacent
to it was sold with the house. The above mentioned land was
granted to Thomas Ludwell and Thomas Stegge, January 1, 1667.
Its area was a half acre. It was situated on the southern shore
of the island " adjoyning to the westermost of those three houses
all of which joyntly were formerly called by the name of the
old state house," sixty-seven feet from high-water mark.10 From
what follows the patent apparently did not include the house, or,
more correctly, its ruins.
Henry Eandolph, clerk of the court, sold the ruins of the
three houses and the grounds they respectively covered, April
7, 1671," as follows: The eastern house ruins and grounds to
Thomas Swann, of the county of Surry ; the middle, or " old
state house" proper, to Nathaniel Bacon [Sr.], executor of the
estate of Colonel Myles Cary," and the western to Thomas
8Va. Land Pat. Records, Book II, p. 10.
"Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 407.
10 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VI, p. 223.
11 Conway Robinson's Transcripts of Miscellaneous Manuscripts, p.
258, from General Court Rule Book No. 2, pp. 155, 617.
12 Colonel Cary came to Virginia in 1645, constructed the first fort
on site of Fort Monroe, and was killed there in an engagement with
the Dutch, in 1667.
6— J. T.

82
LudweB. By his wBl, proved May 15, 1671, Thomas Stegge left
to Thomas Ludwell his interest in a house bought jointly with
Ludwell of Henry Eandolph.u Ludwell subsequently secured
a patent for a half acre of land adjoining the house ruins and
sold the property to Sir WBliam Berkeley for one hundred and
fifty pounds sterling, March 17, 1672."
It seems most probable that the buBding erected by Governor
Berkeley between 1642 and 1655 and sold by him to Eichard
Bennett in the latter year, the one referred to in the patent to
Ludwell and Stegge of 1667, that sold by Bandolph to Thomas
Ludwell in 1671, and by LudweB to Berkeley in 1672, were one
and the same.
The foregoing proves conclusively that the first state house
was near the southern bank of the island and eastward of the
old tower ruin.
It also seems probable that the orchard land and two houses
donated to Governor Berkeley in March, 1642-43, were the same
bought by the Grand Assembly from Sir John Harvey in April,
1641, and paid for in January following, and that the buBding
previously referred to as being built by Berkeley was an addition
made by him on the western side of the Harvey buBdings. The
westernmost of the two buildings previously owned by Harvey,
therefore, became the middlemost of the block. It had been
used as a courthouse in his time, as stated above, and constituted
the state house during Berkeley's first term.
In the description of a tract of land patented to John Bauld
win in October, 1656, as previously noted, the land of Eichard
James is given as its eastern boundary, and "the slash which
lyeth between the State House [land] and the said Mr. James "
as its southern.16 Eichard James' land, of which patent was re
corded June 5, 1657, included one hundred and fifty acres of the
second ridge east of a "northerly" line passing "by" the
13 Genealogical Gleanings in England, p. 102.
" Robinson's Transcripts, p. 258.
16 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IV, p. 88.

83
" Friggett Landing," to the marsh below " Pyping Point," *
including forty acres granted in 1654." The slash, forming
Bauldwin's southern boundary, was the upper branch of " Pitch
and Tarr Swamp," which is the northern boundary of the third
and fourth ridges. The state house referred to in the patent,
or probably more precisely the state house land, would seem to
have been on the fourth ridge, as the part of the third ridge
east of James' western line prolonged is very low ground.
During the session of the Assembly in October, 1666, an act
was passed confirming the ownership of land held under unre
corded patents, on the grounds that their being unrecorded
resulted from the neglect of the clerks and the destruction of
the records by " two severall fires." M The above indicates that
the repositories of the records — two state houses — had been
burned prior to 1666. The " two severall fires," therefore, were
doubtless those of the " old state house " — the first state house,
on the southern island bank — and its successor, referred to in
the Bauldwin patent, on the fourth ridge.
As Governor Berkeley sold his house in the " old state house "
block to Governor Bennett, March 30, 1655, and as the Assembly
passed an aet during the session beginning December 1, 1656,
providing for the payment of 2,500 pounds of tobacco to
Thomas Woodhouse for house rent for the accommodation of
the committee and for two sittings of the quarter courts,19 held
probably in June and September, 1656, preceding, it would
appear that the first state house was burned between March,
1655, and June, 1656.
The second state house was probably improvised out of a
private dwelling, for in those days of great inertia the four to
seven months interval between the burning of the first state
house and the issuing of the Bauldwin patent which contains

"Ibid, Book IV, p. 196.
"Ibid, Book III, p. 368.
wHening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 245.
™Ibid, Vol. I, p. 425.

84 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
the allusion to the second state house seems hardly long enough
for erecting a building.
The second state house was probably burned shortly before
1660, for during the session of the Assembly in October of that
year, house rent incurred for Assembly meetings amounting to
3,500 pounds of tobacco, and for meetings of the governor and
Council amounting to 4,000 pounds of the same medium of
exchange were appropriated and ordered paid to Thomas Hunt
and Thomas Woodhouse, respectively.20
During the above session Governor Berkeley was requested
by the Assembly to take charge of the building of a state house
and authorized to pay liabBities incurred therefor out of the
public funds and those to be thereafter raised by act of Assem
bly. He was also authorized to impress ten men to work on the
building.21 In 1654 a grant of an acre lot on the southern water front of
the town was made to Thomas Woodhouse.22 Judging from the
agreement of direction of the lot's southern boundary, as given
in the patent, with the part of the river bank one hundred yards
east of the first state house, or just west of the turf fort, the lot
was near that locality. A grant of one acre on the same shore
about two hundred yards further east, was also made to Thomas
Hunt in 1655.23 It is possible that the above tracts were those
on which were situated the taverns, in which rooms were rented
for meetings of the Assembly and for holding court. Their de
scriptions in the patents, however, are insufficient to definitely
locate them. Thomas Woodhouse in 1694 owned a tract on
the crest of the fourth ridge, just west of the Ambler mansion,
on which, possibly, his tavern was situated.
During a session of the Assembly in March, 1660-1661, the
expense of renting halls for holding its meetings and those of
the court was urged as a cogent reason for acquiring a state
10 Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 12.
21 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 13.
82 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book III, p. 380,
"Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 38.

THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 85
house, and, with a view to making the necessary taxation for the
purpose as light as possible, it was resolved to solicit subscrip
tions. The governor, councillors, and burgesses headed the
list of subscribers, donating considerable sums of money and
tobacco, to be paid out of the next crop. After a lapse of over
two years the matter was again brought up in the Assembly, on
September 16, 1663.24 The question as then submitted was,
" Since the charge the country is yearly at for houses for the
quarter courts and assemblys to sit in would in two or 3 years
defray the purchase of a state house. Whether it were not more
profitable to purchase for that purpose then continue for ever
at the expence, accompanied with the dishonor of all our laws
being made and our judgments given in alehouses."
On the day foBowing a committee of six burgesses was
appointed to confer with the governor about a state house.25
Under date of April 10, 1665, Thomas Ludwell, colonial secre
tary of state, wrote Lord Arlington that the rebuilding of the
town in brick was sufficiently advanced to furnish the necessary
buildings in which to transact the business of the colony. The
buildings referred to by Ludwell were probably some of those
erected in furtherance of the act of Assembly of December,
1662, for rebuilding the town with brick houses,26 and it is
probable that the meaning of the letter was that the state house
building was completed.
There does not appear to be extant any description of the
third state house. The following extract from a message
addressed to the House by the governor during the session of
the Assembly of 1685 " shows that the third and fourth state
house buildings occupied the same site and probably were of the
same shape and proportions : " This day an addresse and some
orders of yr. House have been presented to me & ye CouneB by
some of yr. members, and doe much wonder, you should pro-
^Ibid, Vol. II, p. 204.
85 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 205.
'"Ibid, Vol. II, pp. 172, 173.
"'McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 379, 380.

86 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
pose soe unreasonably, as to desire our concurrence, in ye memo
rial [removal?] of ye secretaries office, wch. ever since ye state
House was first built, until burnt, has been continued in ye place
you allot for an office for ye Clerk, soe that Mr. Secretary justly
claims it by prescription, and you yrselves have soe consented
and alsoe desired, that it be enlarged as by ye agreement made
ye last Gen'l Assembly with Col. LudweB." The spot, there
fore, is established where, in June, 1676, Bacon, at the head of
his little army, demanded a commission to proceed against
and chastise the Indians, and where the testy old governor, while
baring his breast, reiterated the words, "here! shoot me, 'fore
God, fair mark, shoot."
After the burning of the third state house in September, 1676,
it was proposed to rebuild the town, retaining its original name,
at Tindall's Point,28 now known as Gloucester Point, on York
Eiver. Gloucester Point at this time was a prosperous settle
ment and being on salt water was probably very healthy.
" James Towne," however, was not yet to be abandoned, and in
about eight years the rebuilding of the state house on the old
site was begun.
In the interim between the burning of the third state house
and its rebuBding, the expedient of using taverns for holding
the sessions of the Grand Assembly, as had been twice done
when the colony had lost its capitol by fire, was again resorted
to, allowances of tobacco being made to Mr. Henry Gauler for
several meetings of the court and Assembly held at his tavern.29
In the 1685 session of the General Assembly an agreement was
entered into with Mr. WBliam Sherwood for the use of "his
great Hall, and ye back room on ye same floor and ye cellar
under ye said room," for courthouse purposes, during the en
suing year, including "fire, candle and attendance," at twenty-
five pounds sterling per annum.™ Sherwood's house was un-
38 Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 405.
*> McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 372, 376.
wIbid, pp. 385, 388

-p. 
3Wt<mt fmtnftatum* at KnmnlMn^n.
^isco»ere<J wtb Qfoifflieb in 1903,
6,
Scak .?ft.

o 4 a n i6 eo a+T

g  %*d

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Office
«ffe? 1685

Comt &fyw* 2?octtt

^ci

Stote - <&fafe«

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7"Ae iSV<» <"=<%* SUmas 7o>yne"/S07-/S9S.

Copyright, /903, by Samuel H. Yonge.

87
doubtedly on the site of the acre lot bought by him in 1681, on
which stood the country house.
The approximate site of the fourth state house is learned from
the foBowing quotation from a patent to WBliam Sherwood,
recorded AprB 20, 1694 131 "grant unto William Sherwood of
James City Gent, 308 acres of land Scituate lying and being in
James City and James City Island, beginning on James Eiver
at the head of Pitch and Tarr Swamp next above the state house
and running along the North side thereof" [branch of swamp].
A study of the above patent leaves no room for doubting that
the branch of swamp referred to was the upper branch, from
which it follows that the buBding stood on the third ridge.
The site of the fourth state house was unknown untB early in
1903, when, as before stated, it was located by the author. A
few references to its predecessor occur in "T. M.'s account
of Bacon's Eebellion. This narrative, written thirty years after
the above revolution, shows that the state house of 1666-1676
was a two-story building. At the eastern end of the first story
was an apartment used as the couneB chamber and for court
house purposes. In the second story was the Assembly room of
the House of Burgesses, " a long room." From the manner in
which the " end of the state house " is referred to by " T. M.,"
it might appear that the building had but one free end. This
accords with the plan of the fourth state house, the western end
of which, as discovered by excavating its foundations, adjoined
the easternmost of PhBip Ludwell's three houses referred to
below.82 The Ludwell tract had an area of one and one-half
acres, in the shape of an oblong rectangle, with its northern
boundary "near the Pitch and Tarr Swamp." The patent
shows that the northern and southern fronts of three houses, of
which the tract contained the ruins, had collectively the same
length, viz., three and three-fourths chains,88 or one hundred and
a Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384.
"Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, p. 16. — Bacon's Rebellion.
K The chain used in the " James Citty " surveys was two poles, or
thirty-three feet long.

88
twenty-three and three-fourths feet, and about the same azimuth
as the north and south boundary lines of the tract.
In February, 1903, the earth overlying the waBs found during
the preceding month by probmg on the crest of the third ridge
where it seemed probable the ruins of the three houses men
tioned in the Ludwell patent of 1694 had stood, was removed
on the recommendation of the author, by the Association
for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, when the brick
foundations of a former row of buBdings about two hun
dred and forty feet long by about twenty-four to forty-six feet
wide, were disclosed at one to five feet below the surface. The
foundations are on the highest part of the ridge where its
elevation is about two and one-half to three and one-haK feet
above great tides. The ground falls gently from the foundations
towards the east, and the shapes of the contours indicate that
the part of the ridge abraded by the waves sloped towards the
western shore.
The foundations are divided by heavy cross-walls uito five
principal divisions. The main walls are about two feet thick,
the cross-walls from fourteen inches to two feet.
As above explained, the westernmost foundations belonged to
the " Country House," those of the next three buBdings to the
Tuins of Philip Ludwell's houses and the easternmost to the
state house. AB of the buildings except the state house were
about forty feet square within the walls. A small proportion of
the underpinning of the northernmost wall of the middle and
eastern Ludwell houses is granite rubble. With the above
exception the walls rest on a bed of mortar about two inches
thick. On account of the base of the foundations being of
different material, as above noted, and of the cross waBs north
of the middle main wall being out of line with those south of it,
it is surmised that the northern halves of the two houses alluded
to were constructed at a different period from the southern
halves, possibly a later one. The inside dimensions of the
earlier houses would, therefore, have been twenty by forty feet,

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 89
thus according with the specifications contained in the statute
of December, 1662, for rebuilding the town.
The remains of several immense fire places are found in all of
the buildings excepting the state house. The fire places are
generally about eight feet long between the jambs. One, in the
southern half of the "Country House," is eight and a half feet
long. The jambs project about three feet from the waBs.
The buildings appear to have been divided into apartments
about twenty feet square by the fire places and heavy partition
walla. The foundations of two of the partitions are T-shaped. It is
conjectured that the spaces between the heads of the T's and
the southern porches were approximately square halls, with a
room at either end. The spaces between the T-heads and the
middle main wall of either side of the stem of the T were prob
ably utilized as lockers or closets. The obliquity of the T par
tition and also of the porch of the middle Ludwell house with
reference to the main walls cannot be satisfactorily explained.
It may have been the result of careless work of the builder, or it
may indicate that the main walls belonged to buildings erected
at different periods from the other parts referred to. The
floors of two of the rooms were paved with brick, parts of the
paving still remaining.
Brick foundations of several porches projecting from the
southern main wall indicate that the buildings faced the south.
One of the porches adjoins the middle of the state house, two
others the easternmost and middle Ludwell houses. They were
about ten feet square inside. Their foundation walls are eigh
teen to twenty-two inches thick. At the eastern end of the
middle Ludwell house are what appear to have been the founda
tions of another and smaller porch eight and one-half feet
square inside the walls. It may have belonged to a house
erected prior to 1665.
Under the northern half of the westernmost Ludwell house
was found a cellar, twenty by forty feet by about six feet deep,
filled with' the brick of fallen walls. The cellar is naved with

90 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
brick. In the floor is a pit three and one-half feet square by
three feet deep, with brick-lined sides. Leading from the pit to
what was apparently formerly a hole about a foot in diameter is
a shallow drain. It is possible that the pit was for draining the
cellar, but it is far more probable that it was a weB. On the
floor of the cellar were several sheets of melted lead, and among
the brick debris were a " sacar " shot, also two bombsheBs — one
of the calibre of a demi-culverin, the other of a sacar — and frag
ments of exploded shells. The above warlike reBcs may have
been fired in 1676 from Bacon's trench near the north end of the
isthmus. The cellar is entered by a fight of steps on its
northern side. A pipe, scissors, steel sewing-thimble, copper
candle stick, ladies' riding-stirrup, and an old bottle, aB of
quaint and antique shapes, found in the cellar, form additions to
the Association's relics.
The bond of the brick work of the ceBar waBs is the same as
that of the foundations and tower ruin of the brick church of
1639-47 — viz., the so-called English bond. This bond is found
in Flanders, Holland, and Ehenish Germany, from which coun
tries it appears to have been introduced into Great Britain." Its
employment at "James Towne" is probably to be accounted
for by several of the residents of the town during its fourth
decade being German or Dutch briekmakers and bricklayers.
" The Country House " is separated from the LudweB buBd
ings by an eighteen-inch party wall. Under its northern half
was an unpaved cellar entered by a flight of steps on the north
side similar to those of the Ludwell cellar.
The foundations of the state house show that it was about
seventy-iour feet by twenty feet within the waBs. It was divided
by a fourteen-inch cross waB into two parts, one about forty-
two, the other obout thirty-one feet long. Projecting from the
middle of the north wall are foundations of a wing about fifteen
feet square within the walls, referred to below. On each side of
the wing is a projection which may have belonged to bay win-
84 Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. IV, page 461.

SECTION OF STATE HOUSE FOUNDATIONS DISCOVERED AND EXCAVATED IN 1903
In the foreground is shown cellar of Ludwell's easternmost house, and between it and the river that of the " Country House.''
" The lone cypress" appears in the background.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 91
dows or fireplaces. If not to the latter, the state house prob
ably was not heated, as there are no other indications of fire
places in the buBding.
The general plan of the state house, with its north wing and
south porch, is symmetrical.
From the original transcript of the Journal of the General
Assembly, held at Jamestown in May, 1684 * it is learned that
during that session a committee consisting of " Coll0 Kendall —
Capt: Fra: Page — Capt: Eobinson — Coll0 George Mason — Mr.
Hen : Hartwell — Major Allen and Mr. Sherwood," was appointed
to consider the rebuilding of the state house and to ascertain its
cost. The committee was also instructed to submit with its re
port the proposals of any persons willing to perform the work.
The committee acted promptly and its report * was as promptly
approved by the House. The report was then submitted to the
governor, who appointed Mr. Sherwood to draw up a contract
"between his Exlncy & the Speaker in behalfe of the Generall
Assembly and the HonbIe Coll0 Phillip Ludwell for the Eebuild-
ing the state house."
The only available data pertaining to the arrangement of the
interior of the building are the allusions to it in "T. M.'s"
account of Bacon's EebeBion, and the Journal of the General
Assembly held at "James Citty" in November and December,
1685 " quoted from above.
During the above session the rebuilding of the state house was
probably nearly completed, and it was ordered by the House
"That Mr. Auditor Bacon pay to Col. Philip Ludwell fower
hundred pounds sterling out of ye Moneys accruing from ye
duty of three pence pr. gallon upon liquors, for and in consid
eration of rebuilding ye State House, upon payment of wch
35 Colonial Record Book, Vol. 85, pp. 168—207, P. R. O., London,
England. w Miss Ethel B. Sainsbury, of London, England, who examined and
made transcripts of portions of the above documents for the author
states that the committee's report does not appear in the flies of the
London P. R. O.
37 McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 312, et seq.

92
money, Mr. Auditor is desired to take bond from Col. LudweB
for ye full compleating of ye House, in such manner as shall be
fully satisfactory to his Excellency ye CouneB & ye House of
Burgesses answerably good and equivalent to the condition of
ye same."88
From the same Journal of the Assembly it is learned that the
Assembly room wherein the burgesses met most probably occu
pied the entire second floor of the main building, and that
adjoining the Assembly room was a smaBer apartment referred
to as the porch room or porch chamber, which in the third state
house had been used as the secretary's office and as a repository
of the colonial records. This room, as shown by the extracts
from the Assembly Journal, was a bone of contention between
the governor (Lord Howard of Effingham) and the burgesses,
and no doubt had much to do with the subsequent persecution
of Eobert Beverley, clerk of the Assembly. It is conjectured
that the porch room was over the south porch.
The chamber used for the double purpose of holding sessions
of the court and meetings of the CouneB was on the first floor —
probably represented by the larger of the two divisions, the
eastern, formed by the fourteen-ineh cross waB. The smaBer,
or western, was used as a waiting-room for those having business
at court. A part of the latter, at its western end, was cut off by
a wooden partition in 1685 or 1686 for an office for the secre
tary of state. It is likely that there was a wide haB in the
first story connecting the south porch and the north wing, and
as "T. M." states that he saw the Council in session through
the open doorway while on his way up to the Assembly, it seems
likely that the hall contained the staircase.
As the foundations of the north wing are but fourteen inches
thick, they probably carried walls but one story high, which
prior to 1686 may have belonged to the office of the clerk of the
Assembly. ™Ibid, p. 366.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 93
Subjoined are extracts from the Journal of the Assembly in
December, 1685, the authority for some of the foregoing deduc
tions: "Eesolved by ye House, that ye room in ye state House,
caBad ye Porch Chamber be kept and appropriated an office for
ye Clk of ye Assbly and yt Eobert Beverley89 ye present Clerk
take possession thereof and therein Lodge and place all Eecords,
Books and Papers, .belonging to ye Assembly, wch either now are
or for ye time to come shall be committed to his charge keeping
or Custody.
Ordered that this resolve of ye House be sent to his Excel
lency and ye Councel, with ye requests of this House for their
concurrence therein.
Proposed by ye House, yt ye lower room in the state House
opposite to ye Court House room be with all possible expidition
fitted for ye Secretaries Office, And this House doe pray his
ExceBency will please to command and direct ye doing thereof,
and yt the Honble Col Ludwell be treated with about it
Xber 4th 1685
Signed by Order of ye House of Burgesses
Eobt. Beverley, Clk Assbly"
" Xber 8th 1685.
By ye House of Burgesses
To his ExceBency and ye Council.
This House having read and considered yr Exelies late answer
to ye resolve of this House, appointing ye room called ye Porch
room in ye State House for an office for their Clerk, and that ye
lower room under ye Assembly room may be fitted, soe much
thereof, as is necessary, for an office for Mr. Secretary, doe now
again supplicate yr Excellency and ye Council, wBl please to
concur with them therein, for although they doe acknowledge
88 Although this name is now spelled both with and without an e
in the last syllable, the former style appears to have been that used
by the above-mentioned person.

94 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
yt ye sd porch room att ye first building of ye State House was
made use of for an office for ye Secretary, yet ye House of Bur
gesses whilst it soe remained, all along observed it, both incon
venient and incommodious to them whflst sitting; there being
nothing spoken or proposed in ye House, that was not equaBy
to be heard there, as wel as in ye Assembly room itseKe, besides
ye same gave continuall opportunity to all sorts of psons to
crowd before the Assembly room, under pretence of coming to
ye Office.
And this House doe again propose to your Excelcy & Honrs
such part of ye room, under ye Assembly rooms, as is necessary
for ye Secretaries office, wch by seeling ye WaBs and raising ye
floor will become as safe & commodious for preservation of ye
Eecords, as its possible any other place can be made, wch they
doubt not will soe appear to yr ExceBency and ye Councel, to
whom they submit ye manner of doing and directions thereof,
and againe request ye acceptance thereof, to that purpose.
Test Eobeet Beverley CLk Assbly.
The foBowing answer was ordered to be returned.
By His Excellency & CouneB.
Your reasons given for ye Porch room to remaine an office for
your Clerk, have been considered and agreed to, upon condition
his Majestys Secretary upon ye first notice given him, be content
that his office shall be in ye lower room you propose wch is not
in ye least to be doubted, and that you wBl provide, that a strong
partition be made under ye second girder, att ye West end of ye
said room, ye floor raised two foot from ye ground, ye waBs
ceeled, with sawen boards smoothd and battened, and ye Win
dows iron barred, and shutters or Window leaves, of half inch
board with a crosse barr to each, with shelves, table & benches
to be well done and compleatly finished before ye next general
court, att ye charge of ye Country, to be paid for ye next Gen
eral Assembly, and that you agree with some workman accord
ingly."

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 95
It is interesting to note that Bobert Beverley, who was the
clerk of the Assembly in 1685, probably never occupied the
porch chamber as an office, for by a letter from King Jaines II,
dated August 1, 1686, he was forever disqualified for holding
office, the reason assigned for which in the letter being that he
had "chiefly occasioned and promoted those disputes and con
tests" of the Assembly, in the stormy session of 1685. The
king's letter also deprived the House of the privBege of electing
its clerk, transferring to the governor authority to fill the posi
tion by appointment, and ordered Beverley's prosecution for
altering the records.40 Beverley died shortly before AprB, 1687.
By an order of the General Assembly there was to be placed
a " raBing with raBs and banisters of Locust or Cedar wood laid
double in Oyle & and as close as may be ye forepart of ye State
House, of convenient height & att convenient distance from ye
House."" The above is taken to mean that the raBing was to
be placed across the Assembly room to exclude spectators from
the part of the hall appointed for the sessions of the burgesses.
In uncovering the foundations it was discovered that nearly
all of the brick of which the walls were composed and parts of
those belonging to the foundations had been removed, also some
of the brick paving.
It is inferred from finding fragments of slate and tBes around
the foundations that the roofs of the buildings were covered
with those materials. They were specified in the statute of De
cember, 1662.
The row of buildings was probably completed about 1666,
burned in 1676, and partly rebuilt in 1685 and 1686. The re
mainder of the row was possibly rebuilt between 1694 and 1698.
The buildings comprising it were destroyed in the fire of Octo
ber 31, 1698.
The foregoing views as to the arrangement of rooms in the
fourth state house are exhibited on the accompanying plate.
'"Hening's Statutes, Vol. Ill, page 41.
a McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 397.

96 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
During the fall and early winter of 1903 the Association built
up the foundations to the level of the ground with concrete and
the walls of the cellars with the original brick. On account of
the brick being very fragile the ceBar waBs were protected with
cement plaster.
From what has preceded it is evident that the " James Citty "
state houses, although substantial, were not imposing structures.
In the ease of the first, third and fourth, they formed part of a
row or block of buBdings.
It is not surprising that the colony, which a few years before
the building of the fourth state house had a population of but
50,000 to 60,000 free holders,42 could not afford out of its pov
erty and under its heavy burden of taxation, to have any better
public buildings. The annual allowances of Culpeper as governor
in 1681, alone, drained the colony of 2,150 pounds sterling,*8
which, with the perquisite of five hundred pounds sterling
for house rent, reduced to present values, aggregated about
$50,000. Eecurring to the Journal of the General Assembly of 1685,
it contains a resolution of the House of Burgesses providing for
building a prison not concurred in by the governor and Coun
eB." A prison was probably erected after the completion of
the fourth state house, for one was burned in the fire of Octo
ber, 1698.46
The last meeting of the Assembly at " James Citty " was held
in April, 1699, in some building unknown. At the above ses
sion an act was passed for removing the seat of government to
Williamsburg. In the four succeeding years the coBege of WB-
liam and Mary was used as a state house. In 1705 the capitol
building at WBliamsburg was completed. It was occupied un-
tB burned about 1747. The college was again used as a state
a Sainsbury's Calendar of State Papers, Vol. 1681-1685.
M The Present State of Virginia, p. 31, Hartwell, Chilton and Blair.
"McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 356.
" Present State of Virginia, p. 25, Hugh Jones, A. M.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.

97

house untB the capitol was rebuilt in 1755. By 1779, the
centre of population having moved westward, Williamsburg was
no longer well adapted as a point for assembling the legislature.
For the above reason principally, and also on account of its be
ing thought that the place was rendered unsafe by the then
existing state of war, it was decided by an act of Assembly
passed in the above year to transfer the seat of government to
Bichmond, which statute went into effect in 1780.

Arms of Captain John Smith.

7—3. T.

The Turf and Brick Forts.
»HE earliest fort of the settlers, caBed by them "James
Forte," as previously shown, was probably situated on the
river bank, at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge.
From the description of "James Citty," previously
aBuded to, written by the Eev. John Clayton in 1688,1 about
two years after his return to England, it appears that during his
residence at " James Citty," from 1684 to 1686, there was in the
town an old dismantled earth work, quadrangular in plan, " with
something like Bastions at the four corners." In a grant to
Henry HartweB in 1689,' the western line of his tract is de
scribed as "passing along by ye angular points of ye trench
which faceth two of ye Eastern Bastions of an old ruined turf
fort." The above quotations undoubtedly refer to the same
fort. The Hartwell tract being accurately located, the approximate
position of the fort was ascertained. According to Mr. Clay
ton's letter, the fort was dismantled before 1684. No mark or
vestige of it remains above ground. There is apparently no in
formation available as to when it was constructed. As the land
on which it was situated was patented to Captain Ealph Hamor
in 1624, the time of its construction must have been subsequent
to that year, or to that of his death, 1626, on the 11th of Octo
ber of which year his will was probated and his widow, Eliza
beth, qualified as administratrix.1'
It is possible that the turf fort was the one referred to by
Beverley, as follows : " The news of this plot (the Birkenhead
conspiracy in September, 1663), being transmitted to King
Charles the second, his Majesty sent his royal commands to
build a fort at James town, for security of the governor, and to
1 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III.
a Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 701.
" Transcripts Robinson MSS., p. 159.
[98]

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 99
be a curb upon all such traitorous attempts for the future.
But the country, thinking all danger over, only raised a battery
of some smaB pieces of cannon." *
In the account of the town by Mr. Eichard Eandolph in
1837 6 it is stated in substance that some of the walls and mounds
of the ancient fort still remained, that a few hundred yards to
the right of the fort stood the building reputed to have been a
powder magazine, and that a part of the fort had been destroyed
by the encroachments of the river.
It appears from what follows that the fort referred to by Ean
dolph was the last erected at "James Citty." The site of the
former " magazine " is shown on the map.
It is assumed that, in making his observations, Mr. Eandolph
faced the river, the fort being down stream from, or below the
magazine. If the distance between the two structures had been
several hundred yards, as given by him, the site of the fort
would now be in the deep water opposite the Confederate fort of
1861. This would involve an extensive change of position of
the deep channel since 1837, which palpably would be impossi
ble, for, as has been pointed out, the channel of James Eiver at
Jamestown Island is very stable, and no marked changes of its
position or depth occur, even in centuries. It is, therefore, be
lieved that Mr. Eandolph meant feet, and not yards, or it is
possible that the word yards is a typographic error.
The distance between the shore lines of 1837 and 1891, near
the uppermost of the four jetties marked "a" on map, three
hundred and twenty feet below the reputed magazine, is found
approximately by using the average annual rates of abrasion of
two and four feet, previously determined, to have been one hun
dred and ninety feet. The shore of 1891 was accurately located
in that year. In 1896 it was cut back about seventy feet at the
uppermost jetty to bring it to a fair line for receiving protec
tion work. Since 1896 the recession of the bank has been very
'History of the Present State of Virginia, p. 56.
6 Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, pp. 303, 304.

100 THE SITE OF OLD
slight at the locality referred to. When viewed by Mr. Ean
dolph, therefore, the shore was about two hundred and sixty
feet further west than at present, and some of the mounds of
the fort were then standing. At from two hundred to three
hundred and fifty feet off shore, where, according to the above
deductions, the fort would have stood, are what appear to be
masses of masonry submerged from one and one-haU: to two and
one-half feet below low water. The debris lies in what would
be the extension of the "little vale" between the third and
fourth ridges, from three hundred and fifty to four hundred
and fifty feet to the left of the reputed magazine, with the
observer facing the river, thus agreeing fairly well with Mr.
Eandolph's estimate of distance, amended as above suggested.
From Mr. Clayton's description of "James Citty," before re
ferred to, it is learned that the brick fort was crescent-shaped,
that a brick wall formed a part of it, probably one of its faces to
retain encompassing earthworks, or mounds, as Mr. Eandolph
styles them, and that it was situated at the beginning of the
swamp, above the town, where the channel was very near the
shore. According to Mr. Clayton also, on account of being in a vale
and having its guns pointed down stream, its shot intended for
an enemy's fleet would have lodged in the bank below, which was
at a higher elevation than the fort, and from ten to forty
yards distant. The bank which would have received the shot
from the fort's guns was the former head of the fourth ridge,
which formed the eastern boundary of the " little vale."
In September, 1667, an act of Assembly was passed8 for
building five forts, one of which was to be at "James Citty."
Its walls were to be of brick, ten feet high, and the part facing
the river ten feet thick. The fort, according to the above act,
was to have an armament of eight great guns; according to
another authority, it was to mount fourteen guns.* The above
"Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 255-257.
' McDonald Papers, Vol. V. p. 4.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 101
act undoubtedly refers to the brick fort. The contractors for
building the fort were Major Theophilus Hone, Colonel William
Drummond, and Colonel Matthew Page. The funds for its con
struction do not appear to have been raised as late as September,
1672.8 Between 1672 and 1676 a peremptory order was issued
by the court requiring the surviving contractors for the fort,
Hone and Drummond, to forthwith complete its construction,
and providing that no further payment should be made until
the work was completed."
As has been shown, the channel opposite the site of the for
mer turf fort is about twice as far from the shore as it is three
hundred yards above the tower ruin, or about where the brick
fort stood. This coincides with Mr. Clayton's statement that
opposite the turf fort the channel was nearer the middle of
the river than off the brick fort.10
From what has preceded it is evident that the fort referred to
by Mr. Eandolph was the brick fort described by Mr. Clayton,
that it was situated in the extension of the depression between
the third and fourth ridges, which he refers to as " a little vale,"
and which in fact is a minor branch of Pitch and Tarr Swamp,"
and that the masonry debris now lying under water off the
uppermost of the four jetties marked "a" on chart are most
probably parts of its wall, which it was proposed to make ten
feet high and ten feet thick.
[From Mr. Clayton's allusion to the relative positions of the
brick and turf forts, with reference to that of the town, " but it
is the same as if a Fort were buBt at Chelsea to secure London
from being taken by shipping," and " There was indeed an old
Fort of Earth in the town," it is apparent that in 1684 and
1686 the town, or at least the greater part of it, was below the
brick fort. This agrees with available information, for at that
time the only buildings known to have been standing on the
third ridge were the " Country House " and the state house.
"Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 293, 294.
" Robinson's Transcripts, General Court Records, 1670-1676, p. 149,
10 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III.

102 THE SITE OF OLD
It is probable that the buBding reputed to have been a maga
zine was also standing and possibly one or two dwelling houses.
There are no signs of house foundations on the ridges above the
third ridge.
There appears to be no picture extant of Jamestown. In a
little Dutch booklet styled the "Scheeps-togt" (ship's log), by
Anthony Chester, Captain of the "Margaret and John," pub
lished in Holland in 1707, is an engraving of the massacre of
1622. In the clouds of the picture, mirage Kke, are the dim
outlines of a town within a stockade. This cloud picture has
been assumed by two writers to represent Jamestown in 1620
and 1622, although there is not a word in the text of the
" Scheeps-togt " to warrant such an assumption. The picture
is most probably an invention of a Dutch draftsman, made
nearly a century after Chester wrote his log (1622), and who,
most probably, had never been in Virginia.

|f AMES Citty," in its best days, was little more than a
stragghng hamlet, holding besides a church and a few
unostentatious public buildings, hardly ever more than.
a score of dweBings, and a larger permanent population
than one hundred souls. It was the foreshore on which tha
inrolling waves of immigration, on their way up the " Greate
Eiver," first broke. Its life, a feverish one, whose term was
less than a century, terminated two centuries ago. Attempts
to encourage the growth of the town by offering land bounties to
those who should erect brick dwellings, as well as enactments and.
re-enactments making it the sole port of entry for the colony,
failed signally to raise it to a place of any proportions, and after
being twice lifted from its ashes, it succumbed under a third
conflagration and was left prone. The town must have been
held in disfavor, and avoided as a place of residence by many of
the early colonists, on account of a weB-earned reputation of
being " insalubritious " in summer. The period of its life was

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.

103

not propitious for town buBding, as the principal efforts of the
colonists were then devoted to agriculture, particularly tobacco
raising. Few relics of the old town mark its site, but its name is
imperishable. Its requiem is unceasing sung in the rhythmic
surgings of the " King's Eiver."

Historical Summary op the Jamestown Period.
pHE form of local government with which "the first col
ony," the Virginia colony, was initiated, consisted of a
president and a Council of six persons. The president
was elected annually by the CouneB out of its number.
The CouneB also fiBed vacancies in its own body by elections.
The methods of procedure in this body, in some respects, re
sembled those of a mBitary court.
At the end of three years, the results accomplished in Vir
ginia being unsatisfactory to the London Company, changes
were made in its form of , local government by abolishing the
office of president and appointing instead as governor a man of
high social order, and introducing a code of severe mBitary
laws. The new system was introduced on the arrival in Vir
ginia of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, with the title of lieutenant-
governor. Of Gates and his code of laws more wfll be said
anon. Of the first CouneB, Captain Edwin Maria Wingfield, the
first president, was deposed September 10, 1607, and sent home,
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, a famous navigator, " The first
mover of this plantation," died within a few months after reach
ing Jamestown, Captain John Eatcliffe was kBled by the Indians
about three years later, Captain George KendaB was summarfly
executed in December, 1607, on account of his connection with
some vaguely described " mutiny," Captain Christopher Newport
died in the far East in 1617, and Captain John Smith lived to
write the most complete account that we have of affairs in the
early days of " Old Virginia." The remaining confrere of
Smith in the first CouneB was Captain John Martin. At the
abandonment of Jamestown by Gates in 1610, Martin alone
opposed this measure. He was the founder of the Brandon
estate on James Eiver. This grant carried privileges similar to
those of a lord of the manor. Being deprived of these privBeges
[104]

• ' I'-:,'.!,'; I..'..'.'

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

105
by the first legislature in 1619, Martin became an aggressive
partisan of the Smythe faction of the London Company, here
inafter referred to.
The three years under the presidents constituted a most
eventful part of the Jamestown period. In its beginning, Cap
tain John Smith, being unjustly deprived of his seat in the
CouneB, was restored through the efforts of Eev. Eobert Hunt,
and within sixteen months was elected to the presidency,
while those who had connived at his downfall were abased and
returned to England.
Notwithstanding the fatal illness of members of the party
during the first summer, by which two-thirds of its number lost
their lives within three months, much was accomplished in
exploring the streams of the adjacent country. Before Newport
returned to England after arriving with the advance guard of
the settlers, he explored James Eiver to the " Falls," where
Eichmond now stands, in quest of the " Southern Sea," or of
information concerning it.
As an explorer, Captain John Smith was nearly always the
leader, and it was while absent on one of his expeditions, under
the presidency of EatclBfe, that Captain Kendall of the Council
was implicated in the conspiracy, before alluded to.
About this time discoveries and adventures crowded rapidly
on one another. Captain Smith explored the Chickahominy to
its head waters, where he was captured by the Pamunkey
Indians in the " slashes " of Hanover County, not far from
Bichmond. He was rescued from death by Pocahontas, only to
be condemned by his own people immediately after his return
to Jamestown, by a singular form of reprisal, to atone for the
deaths of three of his party on the Chickahominy expedition.
From this latter fate he was rescued by the timely arrival of
Captain Newport from England with the "first supply," or
reinforcement (January 4, 1608).
Next followed Newport's visit to Wahunsunacock, the Pow
hatan, at Werowocomico on the York Eiver, then called the
Pamunkey; then the burning of the shelter huts of the settlers

106 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
in the stockade during the dead of winter. Following this
disaster Newport's ship was loaded for a return voyage with clay
containing mica or pyrites, under the delusion that it was gold
ore. Newport and his supposed precious cargo of gold being
dispatched, Smith undertook the work that made him most
famous, viz., the exploration of Chesapeake Bay, which he com
pleted in about three months. Smith's map of Virginia, based
on this reconnoissance made in an open boat, often exposed to
tempestuous seas, and with the crudest of instruments, was the
authority for over a century. On returning from this expe
dition, Smith found Eatcliffe under arrest, on account of plan
ning a desertion with the pinnace. Smith then succeeded to
the presidency (September 10, 1608), and immediately after,
Newport arrived with another reinforcement, caBed the second
supply. Shortly after Newport's arrival, the Powhatan was invited to
Jamestown to be crowned, and receive as presents certain
articles of apparel and household furniture. The old savage
was not sufficiently complaisant to come, but demanded that the
presents be brought to him. This was accordingly done, and the
ludicrous farce of a forced coronation in an Indian tepee was
enacted, the chief presenting Newport with his skin mantle and
old shoes in return for the presents received by him. The
mantle is said to be in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford,
England. After the coronation, Newport made his second trip up the
James as far as the Monacan Country, probably twenty mBes
above Bichmond, carrying a boat in sections, all in readiness to
sail on the waters of the " South Sea," or at least on a stream
flowing towards it, if either should be discovered. In the
second reinforcement were the first two women that came to
Virginia, viz., "Mistress Forest," wife of one of the gentlemen
of the party, and her maid, Anne Buras, who soon after married
John Laydon, a member of the first, or original party of settlers.
Now ensued a period of great scarcity of provisions, and to
make matters worse, an addition was made to the population by

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 107
the arrival of the third supply (August, 1609), also scantily
provided in the above respect. The newcomers were without their
leader, Sir Thomas Gates, Lord La Warr's lieutenant, who had
been shipwrecked in the Bermudas, and there was, for a while,
as a result of his absence, much disputing as to who should be
the temporary head of the colony. Some sort of order, however,
was finally restored, and Smith continued, under the silent
protest of the minority, to serve out his term as president.
Among the last arrivals were Archer, Eatcliffe and Martin, who,
whBe formerly living at Jamestown, had shown great animosity
towards Smith. This triumvirate, in all probability, was in
strumental in having Smith sent back to England in disgrace,
if, indeed, this was really done, as a few writers seem to believe.
About the close of Captain Smith's presidency, Captain West,
Lord La Warr's brother, who had come in the " second supply,"
went to the neighborhood of Bichmond to establish a post, but
became involved in a quarrel with the Indians, and the enter
prise had to be abandoned. While returning from an inspection
of this post, Captain Smith was injured by an accidental ex
plosion of gunpowder, and lying thus wounded at Jamestown, a
plot was concocted to assassinate him. This attempt failed,
through the misgivings of the elected assassin. From aB
accounts, Smith's enemies appear to have made his life a burden,
on account of which, and of his burns from the explosion, he re
turned to England. It is stated that charges were preferred
against him. This appears very doubtful, for there is no record
of his ever being brought to trial.
Smith's departure from Virginia (October 5, 1609), was
followed by such serious mismanagement by Captain Percy, who
was chosen to conduct the government, that within eight months,
" The Starving Time," about 430 out of about 490 persons suc
cumbed to famine and disease. At this juncture Gates, who
had been cast away on the Bermudas, arrived with a slenderly
provided party (May 20, 1610). Gates introduced the both
famous and infamous laws, before mentioned, for the govern
ment of the colonists. These laws are plaintively described in a

108 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.
petition drawn up by the so-called " ancient planters," modernly
styled old citizens, as being "written in blood." Some of the
offences which carried the death penalty were speaking im
piously of the Trinity, derisively of Holy Writ and calumniating
the government officials. For minor offences they prescribed
milder penalties, such as branding, whipping and thrusting a
bodkin through the offender's tongue. There is record of the
last named being inflicted on a man for slandering Ealph
Hamor, secretary of state. The laws were to be read by minis
ters to their congregations every Sunday afternoon, and worse
stiB, they provided for repeating a prayer by the " Captain of
the watch," both morning and evening, containing fifty per
cent, more words than all the prayers and chants of the morning
service in the Book of Common Prayer.
About two weeks after Gates' arrival he yielded to the plead
ings of the settlers by abandoning Jamestown, being convinced
that all would starve unless this were done (June 7, 1610).
The Bl and half-starved wretches embarked in their little ships
and sailed down the river on their way home. About this time
Sir Thomas West, the third Lord La Warr, the first governor of
Virginia, under the London Company, arrived at Point Comfort
and ordered the departing settlers to return, and by his words
and example, for a time, inspired the people with new courage.
Within a year La Warr was forced by Bl health to leave Vir
ginia for England (March 28, 1611).
La Warr's successor, after a short term by Captain Percy, was
Sir Thomas Dale, a heartless martinet, full of venom and vigor,
who, about the time of La Warr's departure, arrived with
"three tall ships" and three hundred men (May 19, 1611).
Dale soon established settlements at Henrico, now Dutch Gap,
and at Bermuda Hundred. He remained in the colony for
about six years, and established a reputation of a high order,
both for harshness and good management. John Smith, in a
rather docile way, censures Dale's breaking on the wheel and
racking his old and faithful sergeant, Jeffrey Abbott.
Captain Samuel Argall, than whom a more accomplished

10D
scamp perhaps never lived, was Dale's lieutenant, and com
manded the expeditions sent from Jamestown against the
French settlements in Nova Scotia, where he burned Port Eoyal,
settled two years before Virginia, and brought Father Biard, a
Jesuit, to Jamestown (1613). Dale would have hanged this
priest, who was an eminently good man, had it not been that
Argall, who was deeply indebted to him, interfered. With
Father Biard and his companions as prisoners at Jamestown
were two Spanish officers and a traitorous Englishman in the
service of Spain, Lymbrye by name. The three last named
prisoners were captured while reconnoitering ashore at Point
Comfort. The prison at Jamestown during Dale's administra
tion appears to have been a vessel. Pocahontas was also at
Jamestown at this time, as a quasi prisoner, but not in close
confinement. After Captain Smith's departure she was resid
ing with Japazaws, Chief of the Potomaes, and his wife, by
whom she was betrayed into ArgaB's hands for the price of a
copper kettle.
Father Biard was liberated after about nine months, and
Pocahontas was married shortly after to Bolfe. Of the two
Spaniards, one died while a prisoner, and the other, Don Diego
de Molina, a nobleman, after three years imprisonment, was
carried by Dale to England when the latter left Virginia (May,
1616). Pocahontas, Eolfe and Lymbrye were also passengers
with Dale, who, when times were dull at sea, hanged the last
named from the yard arm. Dale's ship was named the Treas
urer, commanded by Captain Argall, and both ship and com
mander attained great notoriety as pirates.
Captain George Yeardley succeeded Sir Thomas Dale as
deputy governor, referred to by Bancroft as "mild and ineffi
cient." During his term (May, 1616-May, 1617), Yeardley
attacked the Chickahominy Indians on account of their refusing
to furnish him with corn, according to a previous understanding
with Dale, and also on account of their assuming a threatening
attitude when Yeardley went to coBect the corn from them.
According to some accounts, Yeardley's above action was un-

110 THE SITE OF OLD
justifiable, and it was stated by those who were unfriendly to
him to have been a cause of the massacre of the colonists which
occurred six years later.
In March, 1617, Pocahontas died at Gravesend in England,
and Bolfe returned to Virginia, leaving his son Thomas with
Sir Lewis Stukeley at Plymouth. After serving as governor for
about a year, Captain Yeardley was relieved by Captain Samuel
Argall as deputy governor to Lord La Warr. Argall left the
colony clandestinely after about two years of misrule, and in
less than a fortnight Yeardley, recently knighted, returned with
the title of Governor and Captain General, as successor to Lord
La Warr, who had died in 1618, while on his way to Virginia.
Captain Nathaniel Powell was deputy governor during the ten
days interval between the departure of ArgaB and the arrival of
Yeardley. The affairs of the Virginia colony had now been under the
direction of Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer or manager of the
London Company, for about twelve years, during the greater
part of which time more or less dissatisfaction was expressed with
the management, on account of unremunerative results. Sir
Thomas was a wealthy merchant, and took a leading part in most
of the great enterprises of the day for extending commerce into
distant lands. He was one of the founders of the scheme for
discovering the Northwest Passage. In consequence of ArgaB's
maladministration, despotic methods and dishonest acts whBe
in the above office, Sir Thomas Smythe was severely censured by
Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir Henry Wriothesley, Earl of South
ampton, leaders of one of the factions into which the Company
had become divided on account of petty jealousies and differences
of opinion as to its policies.
Both Sandys and Wriothesley were men of the highest char
acter. Sandys was one of the framers of the remonstrance
addressed to King James on account of his treatment of his first
Parliament. Wriothesley was a courageous man, who seldom
hesitated to boldly assert bis convictions. He was an intimate

THOMAS LaWARR, Third Baron Delaware*
First Governor of Virginia, under the London Company

Ill
of Sandys, who, it is stated, converted him to the reformed
faith. Sandys was the leader of the "independent party" in Par
liament, which opposed the Eoyal prerogative against "the
rights of the Parliament and the liberty of the subject," and on
account of his activity and zeal, in advocating this principle in
Parliament, was, with other members, imprisoned. Thus did
King James sow the wind of which Prince Charles was to reap
the whirlwind.
At an election for treasurer of the Company held in AprB,
1619, Sir Thomas Smythe refused re-election, and the candi
dates placed in nomination by his faction, that of the merchants,
were defeated by Sir Edwin Sandys, an advocate of a popular
form of government in Virginia. The election of Sandys
greatly angered the king, who recognized in it the influence in
the London Company of those who in Parliament were opposed
to his policies. At the election for treasurer in the foBowing
year the king forbade the nomination of Sandys, and proposed
for the office the names of Smythe and three of his adherents.
The company resented this invasion of its charter rights by
electing by vociferous acclamation, to the office of treasurer, Sir
Henry Wriothesley, "The friend of Shakespeare." On
account of Wriothesley's election the king became still more in
censed against the Company, and at once set about to accom
plish its downfall. Wriothesley was re-elected treasurer during
the succeeding four years of the Company's existence.
To further his plans for overthrowing the Company, the king
called to his service Sir Samuel Argall, whom he knighted in
June, 1622. He also summoned for the same purpose Nathaniel
Butter, erstwhile governor of the Bermudas, who, on account of
malfeasance in office, had fled to Virginia, where during his
three months sojourn in 1622 he perpetrated several high
handed acts, among them that of stealing Dame Dale's cows.
Dame Dale was the relict of Sir Thomas, and at that time re
sided in the suburbs of Jamestown.
On Butler's return to England he published, at the instance

112 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
of the king, " The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia as
it was in the Winter of 1622." In this paper Butler attacked
the management of colonial affairs under Sandys and South
ampton, and defended the administration of Sir Thomas
Smythe. Butler's charges were replied to in an equally quaint
and curious document styled " The denial of Nathaniel Butler's
the Unmasked Face," etc. It was subscribed to by twenty-four
persons, including Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor, the members of
Wyatt's Council and members of the Assembly. Another paper
of similar import to " The Unmasked Face," bearing the title of
" The Alderman's Declaration," emanating from Alderman
Johnson, who had been Sir Thomas Smythe's deputy whBe he
was treasurer, was also answered by practicaBy the same persons
who had replied to Butler's screed.
The following extracts from Stith's rendition of the answer to
" The Alderman's Declaration " and from " The denial of
Nathaniel Butler's ' The unmasked Face,' " furnish a pathetic
epitome of the tragedy of the early settlement :
From the answer to the " Alderman's Declaration :" — " That
in those twelve years of Sir Thomas Smith's government the
colony for the most part remained in great want and misery
& under most severe and cruel laws, which were sent over in
print, and that the allowance of a man in those times was only
eight ounces of meal and half a pint of pease a day, both the one
and the other being moldy, rotten, full of cob webs and maggots,
loathsome to man and not fit for beasts which forced many to fly
to the savage Enemy in relief who being again taken were put to-
Bundry kinds of death by hanging, shooting, breaking upon the
wheel and the like. That others were forced by famine to filch
for their bellies of whom one for stealing three pints of oatmeal
had a bodkin thrust thro his tongue and was chained to a tree
tUl he starved. That if a man thro' sickness had not been able
to work he had no allowance at all and so perished. That many
through these extremities dug holes in the Earth and there hid
themselves till they famished. * * That the scarcity sometimes
was so lamentable that they were constrained to eat dogs, cats,

113
Tats, snakes, toadstools, horse-hides, and what not. That one
man out of the misery he endured killed his wife and powdered
her up to eat for which he was burnt, that many others fed upon
the corpses of dead men and that one who through custom had
got an insatiable appetite for that food could not be restrained
tiB he was executed for it and that indeed so miserable was their
state that the happiest day many ever hoped to see was when
the Indians killed a mare, the people wishing as she was bofling
that Sir Thomas Smith was on her back in the kettle."
From the " denial " to Nathaniel Butler's " The unmasked
Face :" " His computation of 10,000 souls falleth short of 4,000
& those were in great part wasted by the more than Egyptian
slavery and Scythian cruelty which was exercised on us your
poore and miserable subjects by Laws written in blood and execu
ted with all kinds of Tyranny in the time of Sir Thomas Smith's
government, whereof we send your Majesty the true and Tragical
Eelation." It is to be inferred from these acrimonious writings that the
material condition of the settlers could not have been much
worse under one administration than the other; also that under
the Smythe regime this condition resulted, in a large measure,
from perfunctoriness, indifference and bad management, while
under Sandys and Southampton the last named was the sole cause.
It is generally understood that on account of the assistance
rendered by Butler in furthering the king's efforts to destroy
the Company, the charges of mal-administration against him
were suppressed.
In the spring of 1623 a formal complaint was lodged with
the Privy Council and Lord Treasurer against the Company.
This was ably answered and the charges refuted by Sandys,
Cavendish and Ferrar, who, for their pains, were placed under
duress. The king then appointed a commission to investigate
affairs in Virginia, including Sir Samuel Argall, Captain John
Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Peirsey and Samuel Matthews.
The commissioners found in the local Virginia government
warm supporters of the Sandys and Southampton administra-
8— J. T.

.114 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
tions. In the summer of 1623 the attorney general rendered an
opinion advising that the government of Virginia be transferred
to the king. The company was caBed on to surrender its char
ter. This order Sandys and his associates decBned to obey.
A petition from the Company to Parliament to consider the
rights of the Company was met by the king's order to forbear,
and the petition was tabled. Quo warranto proceedings fol
lowed. In presenting the case for the Crown the attorney
general held that the power conferred on the Company by the
charter in respect to immigration was too great, and that by its
exercise the depopulating of Great Britain might result, by aB
of its people being transferred to America. This argument was
considered irrefutable by the lord chief justice, and on June 16,
1624, the Company's charter was annulled.
An attempt was made to re-establish the Company about
fourteen years later, but King Charles assured the remonstrating
colonists that this would not be done.
Yeardley was appointed governor towards the close of the
Smythe regime, but owed his appointment to the influence of the
Sandys faction. He appears to have been especiaBy selected to
succeed La Warr on account of his aptitude for carrying out the
Sandys policy of a popular form of government. He served for
upwards of two years (AprB 19, 1619-November 18, 1621).
His term was made famous by three incidents, viz., the con
vening of the first legislative body in America (July 30, 1619),
the arrivals of young women sent to Virginia to become wives of
the settlers, and the arrival of the first African slaves (August,
1619). The Assembly met at this time in the little frame
church fifty feet by twenty feet in plan, buflt in ArgaB's term,
and previously referred to, and the pomp and ceremony with
which the meetings were conducted must have contrasted
strangely with the simplicity and rudeness of this little edifice.
Sir Francis Wyatt, Knight, succeeded Yeardley. He was
a man of education, but apparently not a soldier. About this
time (May 28, 1621) the opinion was expressed by a Virginia
divine, Parson Stockton, that " tfll their [the Indian's] Priests

SIR HENRY WRIOTHESLEY
Third Earl of Southampton
Third and last Treasurer of the London Company

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 115
and Ancients have their throats cut, there is no hope to bring
them to conversion." This heroic treatment, while only sug
gested by the clergyman, in despair of bettering the spiritual
condition of the savages, was adopted by the latter in the
massacre on March 22 (Good Friday), 1622, of the unsuspecting
and confiding settlers.
Wyatt remained in Virginia as governor for about six years,
and was joined by Lady Wyatt in the second year of his term,
or about a year after the first massacre.
Notwithstanding the improved condition of the colonists, com
pared with that previously existing, Lady Wyatt, writing to her
sister in England, states that the ship in which she crossed the
Atlantic was " so pestered with people and goods, so fuB of in
fection, that after a while they saw little but throwing folks
overboard." On land she found little to encourage her, and
would be undone unless her sister or mother could help her.
Butter, bacon, cheese and malt were especially needed.
In the year of the massacre and that following, there was a
great influx of immigrants, inadequately provided with sub
sistence stores. On account of the hostility of the Indians and
the abandoning of farms after the massacre, very little maize
was planted and harvested. George Sandys, treasurer, uncle of
Lady Wyatt, in writing home states that " the living could hardly
bury the dead;" also that the beer furnished by a contractor
named Dupper had "poisoned most of the passengers on ship
board, and had spread the infection all over the colony;" evi
dently referring to an epidemic of some kind unstated, possibly
cholera. During Wyatt's first term occurred one of the most important
events in the colony's history, viz., the formal granting of a
constitution providing for a civil form of government, of which
the convening of the legislature about two years before by
Yeardley was the forerunner.
On the retiring of Sir Francis Wyatt from office, Sir Georga
Yeardley began his second term as governor (May, 1626), which
was terminated in about six months by his death on Novem-

116 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
ber 27, 1627. His father was a merchant taflor of London.
Sir George served with distinction against the Spaniards, in the
Netherlands, and came to Virginia seventeen years before bis
death as captain of Lieutenant Governor Gates' company. He
owned an estate at Flowerdew1 Hundred on James Eiver, and
another in Accomac County on the "Eastern Shore." He is
criticised by one writer for making a great parade in London
after he was knighted, and the poet George Sandys, in a letter to
England, relates that he was " too much taken up with his own
affairs." With his name are associated the most pleasing memo
ries of " James Towne."
According to Yeardley's second commission, Captain John
Harvey was to succeed him in event of his death, and Captain
Francis West, brother of Lord La Warr, was named as successor
to Harvey. The latter being in the naval service under Buck
ingham, West was duly installed in the office, which he fiBed for
about sixteen months. At this time the immigration to Virginia
was very large.
Dr. John Pott was elected by the Council to act as governor on
March 5, 1629, during Captain West's absence in England, and
held the position till the arrival of the new governor and captain-
general, Sir John Harvey (March 24, 1630). The hypercritical
George Sandys, the poet, refers to Dr. Pott, in one of his letters
from Jamestown, as "a pitiful councBlor," and in another as
" a cipher."
A notable act of the Assembly approved by Governor Pott
provided for attacking the Indians at intervals of four months,
and another restricted the quantity of tobacco to be planted by
each person.
Several months after Dr. Pott was relieved by Sir John Har
vey he was convicted of appropriating other people's cattle, but
sentence was withheld till the matter could be submitted to the
king. In the meanwhBe, the members of the CouneB became
1 Professor Arber suggests that the intended name was Florida
Hundred.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 117
the ex-governor's bondsmen, and Mrs Pott hurried across the
Atlantic and personally appealed to King Charles I, who finding
the evidence insufficient, granted the pardon.
Governor Harvey was one of the commissioners sent by King
James I to Virginia, prior to the annulling of the' London Com
pany's charter in 1623, to report on the condition of the colony.
He at that time patented a tract of land on the south bank of the
James Biver, about five-eighths mile below the present wharf
(see map). While Sir John was governor, he lived, according
to some accounts, in considerable style. A former fellow sea
captain named De Vries tells of Harvey's meeting him at the
wharf with an escort of halberdiers and musqueteers and of
entertaining him right royally at his Jamestown home.
Sir John incurred the dislike of his Council by his friendly
attitude towards the forming of Lord Baltimore's colony of
Maryland out of northern Virginia. Dislike was ripened into
open hostility by the governor's contumacious conduct, and cul
minated in open revolt when he intercepted the councillors'
letters to the king. He was finally deposed and sent back to
England (April 28, 1635). King Charles disapproved of the
CouneB's course in deposing Harvey, and within two years sent
him back' to Virginia to resume the office of governor. He re
lieved Captain John West January 18, 1637, who had been
elected acting governor by the Council.
About the time of Harvey's deposal occurred the famous little
battle between citizens of Virginia and Maryland, whose diminu
tive navies were respectively commanded by Eatcliff Warner and
Councillor Thomas Cornwallis. The question at issue was, to
which of the above colonies Kent Island belonged.
The immigration to Virginia was larger during Harvey's
administration than . ever before. Nearly all of these immi
grants were indentured servants. The building of brick houses
was begun, and the first possessor of one, Bichard Kemp, wrote
about this time that there was " Scarce any but hath his garden
and orchard." Kemp's house, according to my investigations,
was slightly east of the dwelling house built after the War

118 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
between the States on the site of the former A m bier- Jaquelin
mansion, burned during that war. No more striking proof
could be afforded of the simple life of the Jamestonians of that
time, a full generation after the first settlement was made, than
the pride which they displayed over the acquiring of the first
brick house, only sixteen by twenty-four feet.
The establishment of the first free institution of learning in
the New World by the bequest of Benjamin Symms in 1635,
antedated the endowment by John Harvard of the university
that bears his name. Symms' school was situated in Elizabeth
City Parish, Virginia, not far from Point Comfort.
This was not the first effort made in Virginia in behaB" of
education. Fifteen years earlier fifteen hundred pounds ster
ling had been raised by the English bishops at the instance of
King James the First for erecting a college for educating the
Indians, and a single contribution of five hundred and fifty
pounds sterling was made for the same purpose in 1622. The
scheme of educating the Indians seems to have been abandoned
after the massacre of 1622.
At the expiration of Harvey's second term (November, 1639),
he was reduced almost to beggary by judgments obtained against
him by those whom he had defrauded during his administrations.
Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Harvey, and held the office of
governor for one and one-half years (February, 1642).
Eichard Kemp was secretary of state under Sir Francis Wyatt,
and was accused of secretly leaving Virginia and carrying away
the charter and records of the colony. He subsequently returned
and filled his former office under the successor of Wyatt, Sir
William Berkeley.
In Bruton Parish Churchyard near the door of the north
transept of the church is a tomb placed by PhBip Ludwell,
bearing an epitaph to his uncle, Thomas Ludwell, Sir Thomas
Lunsford, Knight, and Eichard Kemp, the two last named being
buried elsewhere in the churchyard.
The annals of Jamestown of the time of Sir William Berke
ley's administrations are fuB of interest. Sir William is prob-

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 119
ably oftener referred to than any other colonial governor. He
took his degree at Oxford at the age of nineteen, and subse
quently traveled extensively on the continent. He was a versa
tile man, and among his achievements wrote a play, " The Lost
Lady," which Pepys notes in his diary having seen performed in
London. When he came to Virginia in 1642, he displayed
great zeal in performing his duties, and manifested a deep in
terest in the welfare of the people and extreme loyalty to the
sovereign. In his later years he was irascible, covetous and
despotic. Sir William was a perfervid Eoyalist, and a man of great
ambitions. He was a staunch supporter of the State Church and
enforced the laws excluding those of other sects from Virginia.
His faflure to amass great wealth and attain advancement after
spending thirty-four years in Virginia, coupled with poor health,
probably accounts, in a large measure, for the petulant and
overbearing disposition for which he was noted in the closing
years of a career which began so auspiciously, and terminated so
ignominiously. Sir William married about his sixtieth year, in 1670, Frances
Culpeper, the widow of ex-Governor Stephens, of North Caro-
Bna, and left no descendants.
Sir WBliam served two terms as governor of Virginia, the
first of about ten (February, 1642-April 30, 1652), the second
of about seventeen years (March 13, 1660-April 27, 1677).
The second Indian massacre, led, as was the first, by Opechan
canough, brother and successor to the Sachem Wahunsunacock,
commonly known as Powhatan, occurred (April 17, 1644) on
" Holy Thursday," near the end of the second year of Governor
Berkeley's first term. In it about three hundred of the settlers
were muidered.
About this time Sir WBliam visited England for consultation
with the Eoyal government. The trip was made necessary by
the outbreak of the Eevolution. Shortly after his return to
Virginia in June, 1645, he attacked Opechancanough's force

120 THE SITE OF OLD
and captured the old blind chief, who, while confined at James
town, was treacherously murdered by his jaBers.
Eichard Kemp, president of the Council, acted as governor
during Sir WBliam's absence of about one year. Under Kemp's
administration laws were passed by the Assembly intended to
diminish the consumption of spiritous Bquors by imposing a
heavy tax on their sale.
During Sir William's first term the colony prospered, and its
population increased. While the Eevolution in England was in
progress, notwithstanding a division of sentiment in the colony
as to the burning issue of the times, Cromwell versus Eoyalty,
matters proceeded harmoniously. Among CromweB's adherents
in Virginia were several prominent persons, including Captain
Stegge, Eichard Bennett, William Claiborne and Samuel
Matthews. When Sir Wiliam Berkeley was relieved of office under the
Commonwealth, Eichard Bennett was elected his successor by
the Grand Assembly. Bennett served for about three years
(April 30, 1652-March 31, 1655). He was a Puritan elder,
and on account of his religious views had been obliged to leave
Virginia during Berkeley's first term (1648). From Virginia
he went to Maryland, thence to England. In September, 1651,
he was appointed a member of the commission nominated by
Parliament to receive the surrender of the colonies, of which the
other members were William Claiborne, Edmund Curtis, Eobert
Dennis and Thomas Stegge.
Governor Bennett was succeeded by Edward Digges, who
served about three years (March 31, 1655-March 13, 1658).
An important event of his term was the defeat of the colonial
forces and their Indian allies, the Pamunkeys, under their chief
Tottopottomoy, under the command of Colonel Edward Hill, at
Bloody Bun, near Bichmond, Va., by the Eichicrechian Indians.
Governor Digges' successor was Captain Samuel Matthews
(March 13, 1658-January, 1660). Captain Matthews was one
of the councillors who, as before mentioned, " thrust out of his
government " Sir John Harvey.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 121
During the session of the Assembly in which Matthews was
elected governor, a resolution was adopted to exclude the gover
nor and Council from the sessions of the House of Burgesses.
The governor unsuccessfully opposed the measure.
The policy of Cromwell towards Virginia was far more
pacific and liberal than that under Eoyal rule, either before or
after the interregnum. In consequence, the country duly pros
pered under the Commonwealth. The three Eoundhead gov
ernors, Bennett, Digges and Matthews, were exceBent and worthy
men. <
Under the terms of surrender to the Parliamentary Commis
sioners, Virginia was to enjoy all of her ancient privBeges, and
be free from all taxes and customs except such as were imposed
by its own legislature.
On the death of " worthy Captain Matthews," the last Eound
head governor, about six weeks before the Eestoration, Sir Wil
liam Berkeley was elected by the Assembly to his second term.
Nbw the ingratitude and selfishness of the Stuarts was made
conspicuous by the conduct of Charles the Second towards Vir
ginia, for instead of being at least as considerate as Cromwell,
he rewarded his ever faithful subjects by imposing heavier taxes
on them than they had ever before experienced.
The oppressive taxes were carried by the Navigation Act,
passed by the Eump Parliament in 1653. By this act, as
amended under King Charles II, all trade by the colonists was
to be carried on exclusively with British subjects in England, in
English or colonial built vessels, commanded by English officers,
and manned by a crew of which at least 75 per cent, were to be
Englishmen. The penalties for infractions of the law were extremely severe.
The English merchants thus became monopolists, fixing the
prices of both the products received from Virginia and the
commodities which they sent there. The colonists, however,
stfll enjoyed free trade with the neighboring colonies. After
suffering for nine years under this oppressive measure, their
burden was made still more onerous by the subjecting of local

122 THE SITE OF OLD
trade with New Amsterdam and New England to the same taxes
as trade with the Mother Country. In consequence of the Navi
gation Act, the colonists were impoverished, and a spirit of dis
satisfaction and unrest was created. Notwithstanding the
impoverishment and suffering wrought by the act, the colony
would probably have escaped the revolution known as Bacon's
Eebellion, had it not been for Berkeley's unjust and impoBtic
course in perpetuating the same Assembly for sixteen years by
successive prorogations, instead of ordering, according to cus
tom, elections for new Assemblies, and by f aBing to punish the
aggressions of the Indians for fear of thereby incurring personal
losses in the fur trade.
About four months after Sir William's election, Charles the
Second was proclaimed king. In April, 1661, Sir WBliam went
to England on official business and left Colonel Francis Moryson
to aet as governor till his return in the faB of 1662. Making
due aBowance for the narrow mindedness of the age, Colonel
Moryson appears to have been a man with some liberal ideas.
In 1667, and again in 1673, Dutch fleets appeared at the
mouth of James Eiver and destroyed the English shipping.
In the summer of 1675, certain Susquehanna Indians who
had been driven south by the warlBce Senecas, and had lodged
with the Piscataquas at the head of Chesapeake Bay, crossed the
Potomac into Virginia and stole some swine. The marauders
were pursued into Maryland by the Virginians, led by Colonel
George Mason and Major George Brent, and, in the pursuit,
several friendly Susquehannas and a chief were kflled. Ee-
prisals followed by the Indians, who quickly gathered into one
of their towns which they fortified.
A large body of Marylanders and Virginians under the leader
ship of the above officers and Colonel John Washington appear
ing before the town, five Indian chiefs came out for a parley.
These, it would appear, were slain, without provocation. The
town was then beseiged for about seven weeks, when the entire
body of Indians unexpectedly made a night sally and escaped.
The only measure which had thus far been provided by the

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 123
colonial government for protecting the frontiers against, the
Indians was the establishing at remote points of a few insignifi
cant forts. These posts, on account of being so widely separated,
afforded no security to the settlers, whBe their maintenance was
a great drain on the pubBc purse, which caused general dissatis
faction. In January, 1676, a band of Susquehannas attacked the
frontier settlements at the heads of the Virginia rivers, and
slew many of the settlers. Governor Berkeley ordered a force to
be assembled by Sir Henry Chieheley to punish the Indians.
Before the order was carried out, however, the troops were dis
banded without making any demonstration. The governor's
reprehensible conduct in this matter, by which an extensive area
of sparsely peopled country was exposed to the depredations of
the savages greatly incensed the people, and it became common
talk among the gossips that "no bullets could pierce bever
skins." In response to a petition from the people for an organ
ized force to proceed against the Indians, the governor forbade
the presenting of any further such petitions, under severe pen
alties. This caused some to naively remark that " rebbell for
feitures would be royal inheritances."
News of an invasion by the Indians being received, a large
gathering of the people of the upper tidewater counties was held,
at which Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., of Curie's Neck, was prevailed
on to take command of a band of three hundred volunteers, for
which position the governor was requested to grant him a com
mission. Bacon was an educated man, of good fannly. He came to
Virginia when about thirty years of age, with his wife Elizabeth
Duke, about 1674, and settled at Curie's Neck, about twenty
miles below Bichmond. He was of an impulsive and impetous
nature, and a born leader of men. He left two daughters, but
no sons.'
"Colonel Gordon McCabe, in Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va., Jan.
12, 1907.

124 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.
The commission not being forthcoming, Bacon set out without
one, and attacked and killed a number of Ockinagee Indians, to
whom he had applied for subsistence for bis men, but who
gave in return, possibly at the instigation of the governor, only
evasive replies. These Indians were regarded as friendly.
The governor at once proclaimed Bacon and his foBowers as
being in a state of rebellion, ordered them to disband, and set
out with a small party to intercept them. Fafling in this, and
probably being aware of the murmurings of dissatisfaction of
the people at his shortcomings, he at once, on his return to
Jamestown, ordered an election to be held for new burgesses,
and directed a number of the useless and expensive forts to be
abandoned. Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., who had heretofore been a member of
the Council, was nominated as a burgess from Henrico County,
and being duly elected, proceeded in June, 1676, to the capital,
to take his seat in the Assembly. Being apprised, on his arrival
near the town, of the governor's intention to arrest him, he
attempted to return up the James. His sloop, however, was
overtaken, and he and a number of his adherents were arrested
and taken before the governor.
The crafty Berkeley, mindful that Bacon's influence could be
more effectuaBy curtaBed by keeping him out of the Assembly,
restored him to the Council. This, however, was not done untB,
at the instance, and under the persuasion of his kinsman, Colo
nel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Bacon had acknowledged his trans
gression and besought the governor's pardon in a " parasiticaB "
paper formally presented on bended knee.
Immediately following Bacon's pardon and restoration to the
Council, the Assembly declared war against the Indians, and
nominated Bacon as commander of the forces to be employed
against them. The governor acquiesced in Bacon's appoint
ment, and promised to issue a commission to him within a few
days. After vainly waiting several days for the commission,
Bacon returned to his home at Curie's Neck, on James Eiver.
It is stated by some that Bacon obtained the governor's per-

125
mission to leave Jamestown under the plea of his wife's iBness,
also that he had been warned to seek safety in flight from the
governor's hostBity. It is probable, however, that Bacon, being
a man of great perspicuity and determination, was aware of the
governor's insincerity, and would not brook temporizing.
On June 21, at " 2 of the clock," within a week of Bacon's
departure, he returned to Jamestown, crossed the isthmus and
invaded the island at the head of four to five hundred armed
men. Bacon's entrance was entirely unopposed. His troops
formed on a green " not a flight shot distant," or less than one
hundred yards, from the state house on the third ridge.
In a half hour the burgesses were assembled by drum beat,
and in an hour Bacon proceeded to the state house with a
guard of fusBeers. Near the corner at the eastern end of the
buBding he was met by the governor and CouneB. Both of the
principals to the meeting were greatly excited, the governor
baring his breast and challenging Bacon to shoot him, while the
latter reassuringly replied that the procuring of a commission to
fight the Indians, and not the infliction of personal injury on
the governor, was his only purpose. In the meanwhile, the fusi-
leers of Bacon's guard intimidated the burgesses gazing at this
exciting scene from the upper story of the state house, by leveling
their pieces with matches lighted at the windows, and vocifer
ously demanding their leader's commission. It is also reported
that Bacon muttered "Dam my blood, I'll kfll governor and
Council, Assembly and all, and then I'll sheathe my sword in
my own heart's blood," and that all that was necessary to carry
this blood-curdling vow into execution was the drawing of his
sword, which was prevented by the "waiving of a pacifick
hankercher " by one of the aforesaid burgesses, accompanied by
assurances that the commission would be given him.
The foBowing day a commission was presented to Bacon, who
promptly rejected it, probably on the score of its insufficiency,
and another was soon drawn which met his approval. After
passing an act carrying full pardon to Bacon and his foBowera

126 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.
for their previous unauthorized and Blegal acts during the
uprising, the Assembly adjourned.
General Bacon at once started for the appointed rendezvous
of his forces at the FaBs of James Eiver, and the governor
skulked to Gloucester.
Eeassured by the recent action of the governor and Assembly,
the people rallied to Bacon's standard.
On the very eve of Bacon's departure to attack the Indians,
news was brought to his army that Governor Berkeley had again
proclaimed him a rebel, and had caBed out the Gloucester militia
to march against him. The people, however, were lukewarm,
five-sixths of them, it is said, being in sympathy with Bacon.
The militia, therefore, did not respond to the governor's caB.
Learning of Bacon's being on his way to Gloucester, the gov
ernor left for Accomac across Chesapeake Bay.
Bacon then made Middle Plantation (midway between James
town and Yorktown; later Williamsburg) his headquarters, and
issued a proclamation declaring the governor and CouneB trait
ors, and requiring their apprehension and surrender. He also
summoned the leading men of the colony to his camp to advise
on the colony's affairs. After calling a meeting of the Assembly
for September 4, and sending an armed vessel under GBea
Bland and Eichard Carver to capture Berkeley at Accomac,
Bacon again sallied forth against the Indians. In the marshes
of York Eiver he was joined by Colonel Brent with four hun
dred men, who ostensibly had gone out to oppose him. The
united forces scoured the country, and drove the Pamunkey
Indians from their fastnesses.
Bacon's naval expedition ended disastrously, both command
ers and vessel being captured by a ruse. A writer of the time
states that the capture was "caused by their indiscretion and
the juice of the grape." Bland was taken by an old enemy,
Philip Ludwell, whose brother Thomas, secretary of state, he
had challenged by nailing his glove against the secretary's door.
The governor having raised a force of six hundred men, left
Accomac for Jamestown with fifteen saB and, appearing before

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 127
the town September 7, demanded its surrender. The seven
hundred raw recruits under Colonel Hansford at once withdrew,
and Sir WBliam entered the town, the old hypocrite faBing on
his knees to offer thanks for his return. On learning of the
governor's movements, Bacon hurried, by a forced march, to
Jamestown, arriving at the isthmus with about three hundred
footsore and tired men.
Over night, a work of earth and fascines was thrown up by
Bacon's men on which, the following day, the guns of Sir Wil
liam's vessels opened an ineffective fire. While the firing was
in progress Bacon extended his work and shortly after received
and repulsed a half-hearted assault of Berkeley's men.
Bacon having brought up " two great guns," " The one he sets
to worke (' playing some caBs it that takes delight to see stately
structures heated down and men blown up in the air Bke shuttle
cocks')," the other to breach Berkeley's work on Block House
HB1, at the southern end of the isthmus (see map). It appears
that whBe moving these guns over the rough ground and em-
placing them, Bacon exposed the wives of the members of Sir
WBliam's Council, whom he had taken into custody for the
purpose, as a shield for his working party. This act would make
Bacon appear rather more resourceful than gallant.
It was now Berkeley's turn to evacuate the town. Disheart
ened by the failure of his attack on Bacon, and yielding to the
importunities of his men, he embarked bis forces, under cover
of night, and dropped down the James. The next morning
Bacon entered the town and "that the wolves might harbour
there no more " burned it the same night.
From near Mulberry Island, made memorable as the point
where, over sixty years before, Captain Brewster met Gates with
La Warr's instructions to return with his party to Jamestown,
which they had just deserted, Sir William's party viewed the
glare of the flames consuming the product of years of toB and
suffering. Bacon's next move was to Green Spring, from which he issued
a manifesto against the governor. He then marched to Glouces-

128 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
ter, where the seeds of disease planted by exposure developed
into dysentery, from which he died. His burial place was kept
secret to prevent his body being disinterred and hung in chains,
and has never been revealed.
Thus died the people's champion, but not in vain. His ex
ample in resisting tyranny and oppression survives, and his
cause, which seemingly was lost really conquered in its defeat.
After Bacon's death his party quickly fell to pieces for want
of a leader, and by January 16, 1677, about seven months after
its inception, the revolution was at an end.
The execution of twenty-three of his prisoners by Sir WBBam
Berkeley brought obloquy upon his name from both king and
people. The hapless victims of the governor's wrath, after
passing through the mockery of drum-head courts-martial, were
strung up usually wherever they were tried or where it would
best suit the governor's whim. These executions were made
under a proclamation issued by Berkeley, who suppressed the
king's proclamation, which excepted from pardon only Nathaniel
Bacon, Jr.
The wave of revolt had scarcely passed before a wholesale
confiscation was begun by the governor, who placed "the broad
arrow" on property of all kinds, including the belongings of
those whom he had widowed and orphaned by his bloody execu
tions. Some of this property was appropriated to his own uses,
and formed the bases of suits against Lady Berkeley for several
years after Sir WBliam's death.
Sir William was as loath to leave Virginia as his successor,
Thomas, Lord Culpeper, was to go there. He disregarded the
king's recall made in November, 1676, and did not leave Vir
ginia untB May, 1677, after the king's summons had been re
peated. Lady Berkeley wielded great influence over her husband and
his supporters, and after Sir William's departure from Vir
ginia, was the head of a cabal which intrigued against Colonel
Jeffreys, the lieutenant-governor. The other members of this
cabal were Colonel Philip Ludwell, Colonel Thomas BaBard,

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 129
Colonel Edward Hill and Major Eobert Beverley.' Lady
Berkeley was apparently very proud of the title of courtesy
acquired by her marriage with Sir William, for, contrary to
custom, she used it after her marriage to Colonel Ludwell, and
it is to be seen on the only remaining fragment of her tombstone
in the Jamestown churchyard.
Sir WBliam's immediate successor was Colonel Herbert
Jeffreys, one of the three commissioners sent to Virginia in the
autumn of 1676 to report on Bacon's Eebellion. He commanded
the regiment then sent to Virginia from England, " His Majes-
tie's own regiment of Foot " the First Grenadier Guards. He was
chreeted to conduct affairs tBl Lord Culpeper should arrive.
Culpeper, with other noblemen, favorites of King Charles the
Second, had been granted the Northern Neck, or Potomac Neck,
in 1669, and in 1673 received a grant of the entire colony for a
term of thirty-one years. He was appointed governor for Hfe
July 8, 1675, his appointment to go into effect on the death or
resignation of Berkeley.
Colonel Jeffreys performed the duties of the office for about
eighteen months, when he died. Sir Henry Chicheley, Knight,
described by some as " an old and crazy gentleman," but in fact,
as shown by his private and official life, an estimable man, then
acted as deputy governor until the tardy Culpeper arrived in
May, 1680.
Culpeper did not relish a sojourn in Virginia, and the king
had to threaten to supersede him if he should longer delay his
departure from England. He was subsequently dismissed for
absenting himself from his government without permission,
after being warned for committing a first like offence. It
was during his last absence from Virginia, in May, 1682, whBe
Chicheley was deputy governor, that the tobacco plant cutting
occurred. There being a surfeit of tobacco, and its culture con
sequently being unremunerative, the people asked that an Act
of Assembly should be passed forbidding its planting for a year.
• Calendar of State Papers, 1677-1680, p. 776.
9— J. T.

130 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
This request not being granted, the people set about destroying
the crop. " The frenzy " spread from plantation to plantation
throughout Gloucester and New Kent Counties, the owners of
the destroyed crops joining the mob and assisting in destroying
those of their neighbors. Both sexes participated in the move
ment, and when the authorities put a stop to the proceedings in
the day time, it was resumed at night. Major Eobert Beverley
was accused of being the instigator of the trouble, and upon his
arrest it practically ceased. When Culpeper returned to Vir
ginia he tried several of the culprits and, under a musty old law
of the time of Elizabeth, hanged two of the poor creatures.
Governor Culpeper resided, during his incumbency, at Berke
ley's old home, Green Spring. Of the mansion scarcely a trace
remains, while the spring flows unceasing, probably as profuse
and cold as it was over two hundred years ago.
One of Culpeper's acts, while governor, was to defraud the
English soldiers sent to Virginia during Bacon's EebeBion, out
of part of their pay by paying them off in pieces of eight, the
coin current, at a higher value than that fixed by law, and appro
priating the difference to his own uses.
Culpeper was superseded by Francis, Lord Howard of Effing
ham, in August, 1683. Effingham did not arrive tBl February,
1684, and meanwhile Nicholas Spencer, secretary of the CouneB,
acted for him. During Effingham's administration the state
house, burned in 1676, was rebuflt, and a treaty made with the
Five Nations in New York (August 5, 1684), who, for many
years, had been a constant menace to the settlements in Mary
land and Virginia.
Lord Howard established the reputation of being about as
avaricious and unscrupulous as Lord Culpeper. He endeavored
to have an act passed empowering him and the Council to raise
money for the expenses of the government without the approval
of the Assembly, but was unsuccessful. He was perpetually
engaged in controversies with the Assembly, and was extremely
unpopular. During about two years of Effingham's term while he was

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 131
absent, between 1688 and 1690, Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr.,
president of the Council, acted as governor. No events of par
ticular moment occurred in the colony during this period.
In June, 1690, Sir Francis Nicholson, Knight, as lieutenant-
governor, assumed the reins of government for Effingham. He
was tactful and coneBiatory, and made an excellent governor
during his two years of office. Governor Nicholson was one of
the subscribers to, and founders of, William and Mary College.
In 1692, Sir Edmund Andros, Knight, succeeded Effingham
as governor. He was also appointed representative of the Bishop
of London, of whose diocese Virginia formed a part. The Eev.
James Blair, first president of William and Mary College, had
been appointed the bishop's commissary, or representative,
several years before. A clash over ecclesiastical matters occurred
between the governor and the commissary, in which although
the governor, on account of his official position, had a tempo
rary advantage, he was finally worsted. In November, 1698,
Nicholson returned to Virginia as governor and successor to
Andros. His second administration was the antithesis of his
first, and in it he distinguished himself for committing numer
ous petty Blegal acts instigated by spite or caprice.
During Nicholson's second term Jamestown's career was
terminated by the seat of government being transferred to Wfl-
liamsburg. Few of the Eoyal governors seated at Jamestown ran the
gauntlet of office and escaped without meriting censure. Some
of the governors under the London Company were probably the
most meritorious, not the least of whom was the illustrious La
Warr. Although La Warr's stay in Virginia was of too short
duration to fully test his ability and character, it must not be
forgotten that he not only bestowed his talents, but gave Bfe
and fortune as well to the founding of this nation.

The English and Virginians op the
Seventeenth Century
S the reign of James I. of England began but four years
before the first landing of the English at Jamestown,
and as that of his great grandaughter, Queen Anne, ter
minated fifteen years after the capital of the colony was
transferred to Williamsburg, the life of the town was approxi
mately coincident with the Stuart dynasty. It is more nearly
measured by the reigns of the four Stuart kings.
Virginia was ever loyal to the house of Stuart. When the
tocsin of civil war sounded, the impetuous and courageous
Berkeley prepared for resisting the invasion of Virginia by the
"Boundhead" forces. Then, too, at the restoration, Virginia
was in the van in welcoming the king to his own again.
Although a knowledge of the physical characteristics of James
town and its environs are necessary to mentaBy depict its out
lines, it is also essential, to make the picture life-like, to give
some account of the conditions existing during its time. Un
fortunately, Jamestown held no Evelyn or Pepys, from whose
journals to cull, and for information we, perforce, must turn to
the "Mother Country."
As many of the Jamestonians were from London and its
vicinage, a presentation of some of the more important social
and economic conditions prevaBing in England, espeeiaBy at
the metropolis, during the reign of the Stuarts, should in a
measure give an idea of conditions that obtained during the
same period at Jamestown.
At the opening of the seventeenth century the dawn of en
lightenment was beginning to break on the Christian world,
and England was furnishing her quota of scholars, whose efforts
contributed towards lifting the dark veB of superstition that
enveloped the earth, by unfolding the laws of Nature and
[132]

^m0iimiRirW&fe' ¦. » w, » _J

133
Nature's God, and turning them to the advantage of mankind.
The seed planted by the writings of Francis Bacon, John Locke,
Sir Isaac Newton, and others, however, was slow to bear fruit.
The emancipation of the human mind was gradual, and the be
nign light of knowledge did not shine with sufficient strength to
fully dispel the encumbering mist until many years after the
little town had sunk into its sleep, which knew no awakening.
Coincident with the promulgation of a knowledge of the Coper-
nican system, ^Astrology was thrust aside; but the flames hitherto
kindled by fanaticism under the guise of religion still claimed
their victims at the stake in the persons of heretics, witches and
sorcerers. King James I participated in the torturing of thirty
unfortunates, who were executed at Edinburgh, to wring from
them confession of a witch conspiracy against him and his
newly wedded wife, Anne of Denmark. The savage law of
executing witches was practiced, to a considerable extent, in the
Massachusetts colony, where, at the instigation of the Eev. Cot
ton Mather, nineteen so alleged were executed in 1692. In
Virginia, none was executed, but one poor creature was abused
by ducking. But then, as Bancroft explains, "New England
was a religious plantation."
Inasmuch as when ships were delayed by stress of weather or
through fault of their masters or crews it was the fashion to
ascribe such bad fortune to the presence of a witch among the
passengers, one of whom was singled out and summarily execu
ted, it was rather hazardous in those days for a homely woman
of advanced years to take passage for Virginia. There is record
of two women bound for Virginia being thus hanged at sea,
Mary Lee in 1654 and Elizabeth Eichardson in 1658. John
Washington, brother of Lawrence, witnessed the execution of
the latter, and endeavored to prevent it.
Until near the close of the century the almost sole means of
communicating intelligence at a distance was private corres
pondence. News letters were in vogue, and a few poor news
papers were being printed in London, but a newspaper at all
resembling one of to-day did not appear till about the time of

134 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
Queen Anne. The first weekly newspaper published in England,
" The Newes of the Present Week," made its first appearance
May 23, 1622, or the day foBowing the first massacre of the
Virginia settlers by the Indians.
The education of females was, as a rule, neglected. Some
women of high social standing could not write their own names.
Books were scarce and expensive. The profit and enjoyment of
the writings of Shakespeare, Locke, Dryden, Bacon, MBton, and
others, were restricted to a few, possessed of considerable means.
The seventeenth century passed without giving England a
single painter or sculptor of renown. A landmark of the times,
however, St. Pauls, or "Paules" as it was familiarly caBed,
survives at London, a perfect creation of its style, by one of
England's greatest architects, whose tomb carries as part of the
significant epitaph, " Si monumentum requiris, circumspice."
Wren's constructive genius and talent as an architiect shone out
in the rebuilding of London after the great fire of 1667, when,
among other works, he constructed fifty of the fifty-three
churches that were rebuilt out of the ninety-eight that were then
consumed. It is said that he designed some of the early Vir
ginia buBdings, but there appears to be no evidence to support
this statement.
Medical science was in an aknost negative state. True, the
circulation of the blood had been discovered by Harvey, but the
skill of the general practitioner of the healing art appeared to
have been of the highest who surrounded the compounding of
his prescriptions with the greatest mystery, and could produce
the most startling and nauseous concoctions. Medical works
there were, some home written, others translations, but with the
exception of some still familiar simples, such as senna, gentian,
wormwood, rhubarb, and a few other dainty herbal remedies,.
they contain few prescriptions that would not arouse our com
miseration for the unhappy patients to whom they were admin
istered, or that would reflect credit even on an Indian Medicine
Man, or an African conjurer. Poultices made of toads and
snails were highly regarded, and when King Charles II was on.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 135
his death bed, suffering apparently from a stroke of paralysis,
besides the placing of hot irons to his head and subjecting him
to the ahnost invariable bleeding, he was forced to swallow a
brew made from human skulls. No wonder he complained of a
consuming fire within.
A feature of the treatment of fever consisted of covering the
patient with bed clothes, almost to suffocation, in a closed hot
room, and John Evelyn notes in his journal his belief that one
of his children was killed by this treatment.
Among the great army of medical quacks and empirics there
were a few bright lights. All, however, resorted to bleeding,
except for loss of appetite and a few other ailments. Shortly
before the middle of the century the learned Sydenham proposed
using for fevers Peruvian bark, but recently introduced into
Spain (1642). In this, however, he was opposed by his con
freres. Touching by the sovereign for the cure of King's Evil,
dating back to the time of Edward the Confessor, was practiced
tBl the reign of Queen Anne.
Although reBgious fanaticism was not as violent in the seven
teenth century as in the sixteenth, the penalty of death at the
stake was still inflicted on those adjudged heretics by ecclesias
tical courts. This penalty was meted out to two Arians in the
reign of King James I, four years after the settlement of James
town. The conflict between religious sects still obtained, it
being the fashion for the dominant sect to persecute and torture
those whose theology or creed was at variance with its own, and
to use harsh and cruel measures in pointing out the road to
salvation. Sympathy for those in misfortune was not generally mani
fested, as it is to-day, and the few charities lacked organization.
The rabble made sport of the felon on his way to the gallows,
and followed him with gibes and execrations. The culprit in
the stocks was derided and pelted, and could account himself
fortunate if he survived the ordeal with no worse punishment
at the hands of his fellows than the bodily bruises made by their
missiles, and the laceration of his feelings by their taunts. This

136 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
iack of feeling was not confined to the lower classes, for we are
told that gentlemen of fashion showed a Bke moral depravity by
attending by way of pastime the whipping of women prisoners
in the jaBs.* Men's minds had not been directed into humane
channels, and the standard of benevolence was at such a low ebb
that some who were accounted philanthropists thought it not
amiss to employ children of the tender age of six in factories.
Discipline in the school room, the family, and in mBitary
organizations, was harsh and cruel.
Tennis, golf and card games then, as now, were pastimes,
also morris dances and May pole games, both now aB but obso
lete. About a quarter of a century after Jamestown was founded
the Puritans in some districts of England prohibited the people
from engaging in games and sports on Sundays, in consequence
of which King Charles I issued his "Declaration of Sports,"
forbidding any interference on Sunday afternoons with those
indulging in such sports, as dancing, archery, and other similar
pastimes, provided they had attended divine service in the morn
ing. Bull baiting and playing at bowles, however, were pro
hibited. The play of skittles was abolished by law.
During the reigns of James I and Charles I music was re
garded as a necessary accomplishment for both sexes, and was
cultivated by all classes. ChappeB tells us that " Tinkers sung
catches, mflkmaids sung ballads, each trade and even beggars
had their special songs. The bass viol hung in the drawing-
room for the amusement of waiting visitors, and the lute,
cithern and virginals were necessary furniture of the barber
shop. They had music at dinner, * * at supper, * * at wed
dings, * * at funerals, * * at night, * * at dawn, * * at work,
* * and at play." Under the Commonwealth, music was con
demned by the Puritans as frivolous, and as one of Satan's
snares, and they excluded it from the church and family. With
the Eestoration, music was revived. Madrigals, resembBng
glee songs; dramatic plays, interspersed with music, called
lMacaulay's Hist, of England, Vol. I.

KING JAMES THE SECOND

QUEEN MARY

KING WILLIAM THE THIRD

137
masques, the precursor of the opera, were the common forms of
presenting it. The harpsichord, as successor of the virginals,
appeared during the century, but the musical instruments in
more common use included violins, viols, and several forms of
harps and wind instruments.
The purchasing power of the English laborer's wages, com
pared with the prices of necessaries, was apparently about haU
as great as to-day. The wage rate was fixed by law, and em
ployers paying a higher one were subject to penalties.
Wheaten bread was too expensive for general use, and pease
pudding, oatmeal porridge, rye bread, cheese and small beer,
were common articles of diet. Meats, as compared with wages,
were high. Vegetables in common use, both in England and in
Virginia, comprised peas, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, turnips
and carrots. Tea was introduced into England towards the end
of the Commonwealth, and coffee in the sixth year of King
Charles the Second's reign.
It was not untB seventy-two years after the landing of the
English at Jamestown that the act of Habeas Corpus, which in
a restricted sense had become a statute in the reign of Charles
I, received, in a more extended form, royal approval at the hands
of Charles II. James II endeavored, although unsuccessfuBy,
to have Parliament repeal the act. The act was not operative in
Virginia during the Jamestown period.6
When the colonizing of Virginia was begun it is authentically
stated that there were nearly 300 offences against the law for
which the death penalty, with or without the benefit of clergy,
was prescribed. Among them was the refusal of the accused to
plead in court. A notable instance of the infliction of the
penalty for this offence in the Colonies was that of Giles Cory,
pressed to death " between boards " at Salem, Massachusetts, in
1692. Witches and sorcerers were to pay their reckoning with
out benefit of clergy, also those who should " relieve comfort or
maintain any Eoman Catholic ecclesiastic," or who were seen
B Campbell's History of Virginia.

138 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
consorting with Gypsies for one month. Conviction of theft
from a church, dwelling, or the person, of the value of twelve
pence, constituting compound larceny, of brealring a dam en-
taBing the loss of fish, of cutting down a cherry tree in an
orchard, of transporting wool, lead or silver out of the realm,
of counterfeiting and of breaking jaB, were also to be atoned for
by death, although the culprit in these instances was accorded
the privflege of receiving from his priest the solace of reBgion.
Even beyond the middle of the 18th century 160 of these relics
of the jurisprudence of a stBl lightless age remained unrepealed,
among them being the burning at the stake of women who had
murdered their husbands. This penalty, derived from an
ancient Druidical law, was not repealed untB the reign of
George IV.
An example of the excessive penalties then inflicted is Blus-
trated by the case of Wm. Prynne, a Presbyterian lawyer, whose
offence consisted of having written a book against the stage.
His work was entitled " Histriomastix, or a Scourge for Stage
Players." It was published in 1633. The penalties were a fine
of ten thousand pounds sterling, Prynne also to have his ears
cropped and his nose slit, to be disbarred, branded in the fore
head, to stand in the pillory in Westminster and Cheapside, and
be perpetually imprisoned, "like monsters that are not fit to
live among men nor to see the light." Judging from the inven
tive genius displayed in devising punishments, the bent of men's
minds appeared to have been fiendish, rather than human.
Few of the twenty-four Lord Chief Justices of the King's
Bench serving under the four Stuart kings, possibly six, can be
classed as eminent for ability, learning and high character, and
still fewer exhibit the characteristics usually ascribed to the
personality of an ideal judge. Of the six worthy judges, five
were dismissed, among them the illustrious Coke, for being dis
inclined to carry out the nefarious and arbitrary whims of their
sovereign masters. The other eighteen were sycophants of
various degrees of unfitness. Persons of known bad character
were sometimes appointed to this exalted position, a case in point

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 139
being John Popham, chief justice in the reigns of Elizabeth
and James I. WhBe Popham attended the Middle Temple,
an,d after he was admitted to the bar, he was a member of a gang
of highwaymen, who replenished their purses by night on
Shooter's HB1, near London, at the expense of belated travelers.
It appeared to be essential for the holding of this high office that
the incumbent should render a servile compliance to the king's
wBl. Persons having the additional characteristics of being
arbitrary and remorseless were sometimes sought and found.
A Stuart never retained on the bench a justice of " doubtful
principles," and the giving of a judgment or opinion agauist the
Crown was tantamount to inviting dismissal.
In the reigns of Charles II and his brother James II, the
principal purposes of the courts appear to have been oppression
and revenge. The juries were packed by the minions of the
court, and the defendants were almost invariably found guilty.
In conducting a court it was not uncommon for the chief jus
tice to browbeat and intimidate the witnesses, insult and defame
the accused and coerce the jury into rendering a verdict in
accordance with his wishes, regardless of the testimony.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the resources of
England were not sufficiently developed to maintain its popula
tion, although it was probably only about one-fifth of that of
to-day, and many there were to whom, on account of the pre
vailing small daily stipend of sixpence to a shilling, Virginia
offered great inducements as a haven from interminable poverty.
To such the prospect of becoming landed proprietors seemed
sufficient recompense for a few years' service to the London
Company, or to those of ample means who advanced their pas
sage money, to be repaid in land grants and the service of the
person thus indentured.
The majority of the Virginia settlers naturally were from the
more humble waBcs of life, including many of the sturdy yeo
manry. Virginia also received a large number of the gentry,
and many bearing titles. The last named generally held official
positions. __ There were also large accessions to the colony in the

140
persons of political exiles, many of whom as officers and soldiers,
had participated in the several revolutions of the seventeenth
century. Thus, after the faB of Drogheda, in Ireland, many of
those not put to death by CromweB's soldiers were exBed to
Virginia. Again, after the battle of Worcester, 1600 soldiers
of Charles I's army followed. After the Eestoration, many non
conformists and Cromwellian soldiers were exiled to the colony,
and some of these took an active part in the semi-religious
uprising of 1663, and in Bacon's BebeBion. A number of
Scotch prisoners of war were deported after the uprising in 1678,
as weB as some of the participants in Monmouth's BebeBion in
1685. Some malefactors were sent to Virginia, but then, as
has been shown, offences which in those days were felonies
involving the death penalty are to-day rated but as mis
demeanors. Sir Thomas Dale, while lieutenant-governor, advo
cated sending felons to Virginia, but his methods of governing
were those of a harsh centurion and taskmaster, and were weB
adapted to incorrigibles. Children were kidnapped, sold into
slavery and sent to Virginia, untB this crime was made a capital
offence, without benefit of clergy.
Charles II ordered the Virginia officials to suspend the opera
tion of the law which had been enacted ni 1671, prohibiting the
introduction of "jaB birds," but the Virginia colonists pro
tested, and probably to some purpose, against their country
being made a " Botany Bay."
The lives led by the Virginians of the seventeenth century,
according to to-day's standard were comfortless and monoto
nous. There was nothing to amuse, divert or entertain the
mind, except the arrival of an occasional vessel from across seas
or from neighboring plantations and the gossip furnished by
the meeting of the Assembly or the holding of court.
The volume of money in circulation in the colony untB the
latter part of the seventeenth century was very smaB, and en
tirely inadequate for business purposes. The standard of value
was tobacco, as gold is to-day. As the value of tobacco in Eng
lish money varied with its demand and supply, it was a most

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 141
unsatisfactory medium of exchange. BBls of exchange, based
on the holdings of Colonial merchants in England, appear to
have circulated somewhat in the same manner as our bank-notes
of to-day.
Communication between distant points was carried on abnost
entirely by boats. Horses were scarce for about the first half of
the century, and coaches were very rare, even at the close of the
century. Lady Berkeley is known to have had one, for it is
recorded that she induced her husband, Sir Wm. Berkeley, to
employ the common hangman, a negro, to act as driver of the
chariot which was offered to the commissioners to take them to
the boat landing after their caB at Green Spring to bid Sir
William fareweB, shortly before his departure for England in
May, 1677.
An enterprise which furnished occupation and great expecta
tions to both poor and well-to-do people in Virginia was the
raising of silk. Much time and care were expended to make it
a success, but despite persistent and repeated efforts, it failed to
give compensating returns. The settlers failed to understand
that the climate of Virginia is too damp and changeable for silk
culture, which conditions were the real bar to the industry.
Edward Digges, one of the Cromwellian governors, according to
the inscription on his tombstone, was the sole proprietor of silk
raising in Virginia. Sir William Berkeley, as stated in
another chapter, also took' an active part in the enterprise.
The attempts to manufacture glass were unsuccessful. Beads
were made for trading with the Indians, and were the exclusive
property of the London Company. The sand at Jamestown,
however, proved to be unsuitable, the glass workers became dis
satisfied, and the manufacture was abandoned.
As the dwellings were small and families large, the sleeping
chambers were overcrowded in early colonial days. Governor
Berkeley's house at Green Spring had but six rooms and a hall.
The James Eiver mansions and others that survive were erected
in the eighteenth century, many years after Jamestown had
passed away.

142 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.
Table ware was generally of pewter. Table forks were by no
means in general use. Towards the end of the seventeenth
century table silver and plate were used in the households of the
wealthy. Mrs. Elizabeth Digges, widow of the governor, left at
her death what to-day would be regarded as a fair supply of
silver plate for a person of moderate means. That cooking
utensils and house furnishings were scarce is evidenced by the
bequests in wills of iron pots and feather beds.
Brass utensils were largely used ui the kitchens of the
wealthier. Paintings of merit were apparently rare.
Although a lady of wealth usually possessed a fine sflk and
flowered gown for state occasions, also a lace trimmed bonnet, a
gold or. gilt stomacher, and ornamented fan and other finery,'
wardrobes were rather scant, and the articles composing them,
were for utility rather than display.
The distinctions of class, which were so well defined among
the early settlers obtained although in a gradually diminishing
scale, till long after the American Eevolution. Preferment for
official position depended largely on social prestige, rather than
on aptitude or merit. The lower social order was humble, at
first, almost to servility.
The conditions attending Southern plantation life fostered the
Cavalier spirit among the proprietors. From this order, after
losing a large measure of the hauteur common to its autocratic
forbears, was evolved a type famed for its dignity and lavish
hospitality, " The Old Virginia Gentleman."
Frontier life, in which, for a bare existence, a strong arm and
a brave heart were required, taught the settlers, even of the
most humble class, self-reliance and fearlessness, and developed
that latent love for complete freedom which is planted by the
Divine hand in the bosoms of the English people. From this
class principally, at a later day, came the rank and file of Bacon's
followers, in his trying marches through marsh and forest in
"Economic History of Virginia in the Ylth Century, by Philip
Alexander Bruce.

THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE.

143

quest of the hostile savage, and to defy a tyrannical governor.
From this class also, stfll later, sprung the hardy pioneer, who
made it his mission to penetrate the unexplored regions beyond
the Virginia mountains and buBd up an empire of vast propor
tions reaching to the furthest western limits defined in the second
charter to "the first colony."

Appendix.
AN ABRIDGED DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD EMPLOYED IN
LOCATING "THE NEW TOWNE," FROM THE VIRGINIA LAND
PATENT RECORDS.
The foBowing patents were used for locating "the New
Towne:"
(1) John Pott, "Doctr, of Physicke," for three acres "in the
new Towne," dated August 11, 1624.
(2) Same grantee, for 12 acres, mcluding the above three
acres, dated September 20, 1628.
(3) John Phips, for 120 acres, " part thereof in James Citye's
liberties," dated February 23, 1656. This patent includes 12
acres "formerly granted by patent unto Dr. John Pott."
(4) John Knowles, for 133 acres, 35 9-10 chains, " part with
in and part without the liberties of the said city," dated May 6,
1665. The tract covered by this patent includes the above 120 acres
purchased from John Phips ; 3 acres 44 37-100 chains, also pur
chased from said Phips ; and 9 acres 71 53-100 chains, " due for
transportation for one person."
(5) WBliam Sherwood, for 308 acres in James City and
James City Island, dated April 20, 1694.
The Sherwood tract uicluded 3^2 acres "purchased by him
the said Wm. Sherwood of John Page Esqr;" 1 acre (see (9)
below; 133 acres 35 9-10 chains "being heretofore granted by
patent dated the 6th day of May 1665 to one John Knowles;"
28% acres "granted by patent dated the 4th day of October,
1656, to one John Bauldwin;" and the remainder, "being for
merly granted to Eichard James by patent dated the 5th day of
June, 1657."
(6) Henry Hartwel1 for 2 acres, 1 rood, 24 1-10 poles, dated
April 20, 1689. 1144]

PLAT OF THE TRACTS
used for locating the part of
"Iames Citty"
STYLED
"THE NEW TOWNE."
Scale of feet.

N.B.- Broken lines indicate tracts of
Chew, Stephens, Hamor, Menefy
and Harvey, shown on "Map of
lames Citty, Va., 1607-1698."
a, Knowles' house, after-
..wards Sherwoodfi.
..¦' b,Col. White's house,aft-
erwarcls Hartwelfs.
c, John Phips' house.

>^^ — <y

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 145
(7) Eichard Holder, in "James Citty," for 8 acres, 1 rood,
5 poles, dated January 28, 1672.
(8) Wm. Edwards, Jr., for 127 poles in James City, dated
October 15, 1698.
(9) William Sherwood, for one acre of land * * * "in
James Citty on which formerly stood the brick house formerly
caBed the Country house," etc., dated April 23, 1681.
The tracts represented by the patents are shown on the
accompanying "Plat of the Tracts." They were connected by
means of their common boundaries, as follows :
(1) The northern boundary of the Pott tract, (2) line 31-32,
is also one of the lines of the Phips (3) survey.
(2) The line 31-32 is also common to Phips (3) and Knowles
(4), and the line 31-33 of Knowles is a part of the line 31-27,
of Pott.
(3) The lines 4-11, 11-10 and 10-9 are common to Knowles
(4) and Sherwood (5).
(4) The lines 4-11, 11-10 and 10-9 are also common to Sher
wood (5) and Sherwood (9).
(5) Lines 11-10 and 10-9 of Hartwell are common to Sher
wood (5), Sherwood (9) and Knowles (4), and Hartwell 36-11
forms part of line 4-11 of each of the above tracts, (5) and (9).
(6) Line 19-20 Hartwell (6) differs l1/^ in azimuth from
the Bne 19-26 of Holder (7). The length of the line 19-20,
however, being but 51% feet, the above difference of azimuth
would change the position of the point 20 but one foot, a too
insignificant difference to be considered in a compass survey.
Hartwell's patent reads for the course 17-19, "buts on the land
now or late of holder." It also reads for line 19-20, "thence
along holder," showing that the above line is a part of Holder's
western boundary.
(7) The azimuth of the line 19-26 of Holder (6) is the same
as line 21-26 of Edwards (8). The length of the above line for
the Edwards tract, however, is shorter. The south end of the
above eastern boundary of the Edwards tract (8) is described as
being " at ye mouth of ye Orchard Eun on James Eiver," and
10— x T.

146the same end of the line for the Holder tract is described as be
ing " at high water mark on James Eiver side at the mouth of a
smaB run entering thereinto." The runs are undoubtedly one
and the same. >
The patents show that Orchard Bun was on the south bank of
the island. As there is but one stream entering the river on
that bank that could be designated a run, it was readBy identi
fied. The descriptions in the patents furnish some other data as to
the names of owners of adjacent land, which further confirm
several of the above determinations.
Several errors were discovered in the survey notes of the
transcripts of the patents above referred to and, untB they were
located and corrected, it was found to be impracticable to plat
the tracts. The errors were those of the surveyor and of the
scrivener who transcribed the patents. They comprise princi
pally the reading of the south end of the needle by the sur
veyor, and in transcribing, misplacing the decimal point in
the length of a course given in figures, and entering azimuths
incorrectly. In one of the patents, (Sherwood 9), the azimuth of every
course of the survey is reversed. The last named tract might
be omitted from the plat, as it only serves the purpose of con
firming the junction of three other tracts, Knowles (4), Sher
wood (5) and Hartwell (6), which is well established.
All of the foregoing tracts being platted, the point 26 was
superposed on the mouth of Orchard Eun, previously identified
and located on a modern map, and the map as made up from
ancient patents rotated around point 26 untB its magnetic
meridian had a western declination of 6% degrees.1 It was then
found that point 1 of Sherwood (5) fell on the south side of the
1 The magnetic declination at " James Citty " about the middle of
the seventeenth century was probably six or seven degrees west.
There are no data prior to 1694 for any better than a rough approxi
mation. Six and a half degrees appears to be close enough for the
class of surveys to which is here applied.

THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 147
branch of "Pitch and Tarr Swamp," thus agreeing with the
description in the patent record for Sherwood (5). Another
point of Sherwood (5) near its eastern end, omitted from the
accompanying plat: — as by including it the map would have been
made too large — falls within thirty-five feet of where the de
scription places it, viz., on the edge of a great marsh on Back
Eiver. A causeway across the swamp before referred to, being prob
ably the bridge given as a witness mark in the Knowles patent
(4) being found very near the point indicated by that patent also
confirms the location of " the New Towne " as exhibited on the
map. The south line of the Pott tract 27-28, (1) and that of Phips
(3) fix the position and direction of Back Street. The southern
boundaries of tracts of Hartwell (6), Holder (7) and Edwards
(8), fix the positions of parts of the southern bank of the island
for the seventeenth century, which is thereby found to conform
closely to that of to-day, thus showing that it has not been
abraded to any extent by the waves. This is as it should be,
for the part of the island, shore immediately below the present
wharf has not been greatly exposed to wave action. The ancient
south shore of the island and the positions of the Pott tracts
and the Back Street being established, the Ealph Hamor tract
was platted by its dimensions given in the patent records.*
Its position was then approximately arrived at by finding by
trial 'the place on the chart where the length of the tract would
fit in between the Back Street and the "highway along the
banke of the Main Eiver."
The area of the plat of John Harvey8 being given, also its
northern boundary, Back Street, its eastern boundary "the
Swamp lying on the East side of the said New Towne," its
southern boundary, "upon the highway close to the banke of
the Main river," the approximate position of the tract was
ascertained after several trials.
1 Va. Land Pat. Record, Book I, p. 3.
"Ibid, Book I, p. 5.

148 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE.
Erom the descriptions of the Harvey and Hamor tracts the
position of those of George Menefy* and Eichard Stephens,8
and also those of the two cross streets, all of which are men
tioned in the descriptions of the two first named, were readBy
found, and finally the tract of John Chew,6 all as shown on the
" Map of lames Citty, Va., 1607-1698."
N. B. — Lines indicated on the " Plat of the Traces " by num
bers 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 10, are part of Sherwood (5) survey.
Lines indicated by numbers 9, 10, 11, 4, 5, 37, 33, 31, 32, are
part of Knowles (4) survey.
Lines indicated by numbers 28, 34, 35, are part of Phips (3)
survey. The dwellings of Knowles, later Sherwood's, of Col. White,
later Henry Hartwell's, also that of John Phips, although
having no connection with the matter of locating the "New
Towne," are shown on the plate, on account of being interesting
features. Their positions were determined from references to
them in the patents.
By comparing the " Plat " with the " Map of ' lames Citty,' "
especially the Pott and Holder tracts, the relation of the two
plates will be apparent.
" Back Street " appears to have lost its name before 1656, as
Phips' patent of that year, although following its lines, does not
refer to it by name. Charlestown's (Boston) "Back Street,"
dating from very early colonial times, survives under its original
name. * Ibid, Book I, p. 4.
°Ibid, Book I, p. 1. "Ibid, Book I, p. 7.

Note.
The Ambler MSS. and " The Site of Old ' James Towne,' 1607-
1698."
By the publication in AprB, 1904, of the report of the librar
ian of the Congressional Library, for the fiscal year of 1903,
the author of " The Site of Old ' James Towne ' " was apprised
of the acquisition by the library of a collection of MSS. of which
he had no previous knowledge, showing the former possessions
of the Ambler family situated principally at Jamestown or in its
vicinage. An examination of the papers was made by him
towards the end of AprB.
The collection comprises upwards of 140 MSS., consisting of
original patents, deeds and leases, copies of other similar docu
ments, certified and uncertified, and copies of three wills, also
several plats of surveys, all showing the chain of title of the
lands as vested ui different owners up to 1809, and, in one
instance, dating back to 1649. There is no reference in the
Ambler papers, however, to grants of the tracts which formed
the " New Towne " in 1623. A comparison of some of the
original patents in the collection with their transcripts in the
land register's office at Bichmond shows that the latter, in the
main, are correct, and have been properly interpreted, thus prov
ing the accuracy of the " Map of ' lames Citty,' 1607-1698." As
however, there is no plat of Jamestown among the Ambler
papers, their possession at an earlier day would not have lessened
the labor and study required for constructing the above map
and the " Plat of the Tracts."
The papers comprising the collection contain evidence con
firming the composition of the turf fort, and show that parts
of it were still standing in 1721. They also confirm some other
important features of the map. [149]

150 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
Among the collection are several skeleton plats of surveys,
two of which relate to Jamestown. One, made in 1680, shows
that the western shore line of the island in the 17th century
above the " Pitch and Tarr Swamp " was about a3 shown- on the
author's map. The agreement of the above chart with the
" Map of ' lames Citty,' " in this respect, indirectly confirms the
position given on the map of the part of the western shore of the
island below the upper branch of the swamp. This evidence
greatly strengthens the view expressed in the monograph as to
the site of the landing-place at Jamestown of the first band of
settlers. It is evident from the other skeleton plat that the
Sherwood tracts of 1681 and 1694 were situated with regard to
each other and the branch of Pitch and Tar Swamp, as drawn on
the "¦ Map of ' lames Citty,' Va., 1607-1698," and the " Plat of
Tracts." These coincidences corroborate the position of the
Pott tract as given in the map, and indirectly show the general
correctness of the part of the map for the east end of the town.
A reference in a lease for land on the second ridge in 1693 con
firms the location of the third and fourth state houses on the
third ridge, as established from other data. No light, however,
is thrown on the location of the church by the Ambler papers.
It is learned from William Sherwood's will that the epitaph on
his tombstone is worded in accordance with his instructions to
his principal legatee, Sir Jeffrey Jeffreys, Knt., of London.
Interesting information is supplied by the Ambler papers re
garding the 3%-acre tract of " Col. Jno. Page of 1681," shown
on the " Plat of the Tracts." The site of this tract on the " Map
of 'lames Citty'" is covered by Sir Erancis Wyatfs lot, and
the lot attributed to Captain Eoger Smith.
The Page tract included the original grant from Harvey to
Eichard Kemp, Esq., in 1639, who conveyed it to Wyatt.
Wyatt, through his agent, Wm. Pierce, sold to Sir Wm. Berk
eley, who sold it to Walter Chiles, whose widow — afterwards
Mrs. Susan Waddinge — sold to Colonel John Page, who con
veyed it to Wm. Sherwood in 1681. The concluding sentence
in the description of the survey of the tract made for Sherwood

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Patent to William Sherwood, Gent, for 308 acres including part of site of "James Citty/' in 1694, Signed by Governor Andros, witnessed by R. Wormeley, secretary,
[About one-half actual size,] [From the Ambler MSS. collection.]

151
in 1682 reads : " Including ye Euins Sqr Kemps Old Brick
House." The above house was the first brick house buBt at
Jamestown. It was 16 by 24 feet in plan and was referred to by
Gov. Harvey in 1639, with considerable pride, as being the fair
est that ever was known to the country for substance and impor
tance. By the locating of the Page tract, therefore, the site of
the first brick dwelBng house in Virginia becomes approximately
known. The evidence, though slight, shows that the house was
near the southwest corner of the Page tract.
Ealph Wormley, while secretary of state, resided on the Page
tract, on or very near the Kemp grant.

YALE UNIVERSITY

I

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