F 2,2.0 iKiliiiili .te (> (fii.1 '• [M)7—IM mj«m»i»iigtaggm8PHtm!f«iaimrrtB^ Class. Book.. r ' ''-^ , «^ The Site of Old ' JamesTowne," 1607-1698. A Brief Historical and Topographical Sketch First .American Metropolis,. 1 tit Lolonial fJaiiwx of America contempmte erecting a i/tetnoiun fiuilding, to enclose the foundations 0/ the ancient churches, after the i^eneral design of "'ye brick church of /Ojjc^.'" The pro/t-ct does imt lliWF^f^'^^ra^'^O'f^'^fi^f ''M'S'P§, Drawings and Photographs, Samuel H. Yonge. n "Red: etusio renovatum.'" — Festus. Published by the on for the preservation of virginia antiquities. Richmond, Va., 1904. ih 1. "f/H ■-''W'^^SIm ! m r^\-^; The Site of Old 'JamesTowne," 1607-1698. A Brief Historical and Topographical Sketch First American Metropolis, Illustrated with Original Maps, Drawings and Photographs, Samuel H. Yonge. n '^Redivivum est ex vetusto renovatmny — Festus. Published by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Richmond, Va., 1904. WM. ELLIS JONLS, PRINTER, RICHMOND, VA. TH£ LiB'^ARY -OF CONGRtSS. deceived Copyright, 1903, by Samuel H. Yonge. All risrhts reserved. IN publishing this edition of "The Site of ' Olde James Towne,' " the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities desires to gratefully acknowledge its indebtedness to the author. Mr. Yonge's many services — as engineer, in preserving the island from the inroads of the river, and as an antiquary in bringing to light the buried remains of the old town, in giving its public buildings and homes, again, a local habitation and a name, and in writing its history — will ever connect his name with Jamestown. The Association tenders its grateful thanks to Mr. Yonge for his generous gift of all rights to this edition of his exceedingly valuable book. Mrs. Joseph Bryan, President A. P. V. A. ERRATA. Page 6, lines 25 and 26, "Sir Francis Wyatt's first administration" should read " Sir Thomas Gates' term." Map of "James Citty," on John White plat, " 1643" should be "1644." Index to map of "James Citty," reference 7, insert at beginning of line the words "Site of." Ditto, reference 12, change " 1643 " at end of Hne to " 1644." Page 15, line 7, change " erosion" to "rate." Page 16, line 6, change " 1643 " to " 1644." Page 18, line 10, change the comma after "vessels" to an apostrophe. Page 18, lines 28 and 29, bracket the phrase "during Sir Thomas Smith's administration." Page 42, line i, change "is" to "in." Page 70, line 24, change "petition" to "partition." The Site of Old "James Towne," 1607-1698. By SAMUEL H. YONGE. INTRODUCTION. IT was the author's privilege to have charge, under the direc- tion of the United States Engineer Department in 1900 and 1901, of the work of protecting Jamestown Island from the en- croachments of James River. 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 have 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 1676, the other ten years later by the Rev. John Clayton. Both descriptions are quite incomplete. Supplemented by informa- tion from other sources, however, they have considerable value, especially that by Mr. Clayton. 4 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." In the description of the town by Mr. Richard Randolph, 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. Randolph 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 A-nich its few inhabitants, composed principally of resident state officials and tavern keepers, were compelled to remove, and that 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. Randolph accepted and reflected his views, without proper investigation. According to Bishop Meade, in his Old Churches and Families THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 5 of Virginia^ Vol. I, page in, 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 Dufifield Neill, D. D., contained on page 203, Virginia Carolo- 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 has been destroyed. Dr. Lyon Gardner Tyler, President of William and Mary College, in The Cradle of the Republic, pages 19 and 40, places the town at the western end of the island, with the Back Street on a ridge which is referred to in the description of the island in the following pages as the third ridge. Since, as will be shown, Back Street was in the " New Towne," that part of the settle- ment, according to the above writer, must also have been on the third ridge. With the above array of testimony, emanating from such well- known authorities, it was natural to begin the investigation of the subject with the preconceived idea that the town had stood west of or above the old tower, and that the greater part of it had been engulfed by the river. As information regarding the extent and shape of the abrasion could not be obtained from historical works, recourse was had to the old records of patents for land at "James Citty " issued during the seventeenth century, from which principally it was learned that the town bordered not only the western shore of the island near its upper extremity, but also the adjacent southern shore below for about an equal distance and had a total length 6 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " along the river of about three-fourths of a mile. The j)atents 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. It seems proper to call attention to the following most notice- able errors of statement made by recent writers: In The Cradle of the Repicblic, pages 53 and 54, a one-acre lot patented by William Sherwood in 1681, whereon had stood " the Country House," is located north of the lands owned by William Edwards, Robert Beverley and Nathaniel Bacon, Sr. , which were above the church, and a lot which, in 1688, was owned by Henry Hartwell, is placed above Sherwood's lot. The Back Street, Sherwood's acre with the " Country House," and the Hartwell tract, all above referred to, are now found to have been situated east, instead of west of the church tower, and near the eastern end of the town, while the properties of Edwards, Beverley and Bacon were near its western end. The Hartwell tract was on the southern shore of the island, about five hundred yards below the tower, and formed part of the southern boundary of the Sherwood acre. In the description of the town about the time of Sir Francis Wyatt's first administration, given in Vol. II, page 529, Eco- nomic History of Virginia in the Scvoitecnth Century, by Philip Alexander Bruce, it is stated that a bridge was built to connect the island with the mainland. This clearly is a misapprehension, for there does not ap[)ear to be any record of such structure being built during the existence of "James Towne," nor until some time before the middle of the nineteenth century. Ac- cording to Bishop Meade the island was connected with the mainland by a causeway on the site oi the former isthmus abi)ut the middle of the eighteentli century. 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 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 7 sites of two of the town's three forts and of several of its pubUc 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, although the deductions made seem to be justified by circumstantial 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 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 several church structures of "James Citty " parish, erected at "James Citty," are there- fore included. As the page of the Virginia Land Patent Records containing transcripts of two of the earliest patents, viz: to Sir George Yeardley, Knight, and Captain Roger Smith, are missing, it was necessary, for locating the tracts they represented, to depend on the meager information contained in the Patent Record 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 dif- ferent lines. The parts of some of the plats which extend be- yond the limits of the town are also omitted. - 8 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." All dates are given according to Old Style. The author's effort has been ably seconded by Mr. Frank D. Beckham, of Prince William County, Va., who has devoted his leisure to the work, and rendered invaluable assistance. The artistically drawn map of "lames Citty," Va., is the work of Mr. Otto Sonne, civil engineer, of Boston, Mass., whose attainments as a landscape engineer are well known. 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- 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. The passing of a few years will complete the third century since the laying of the cornerstone 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! ■y^cA ames !'/?£> ^ THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." -15 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 erosion 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 Ross 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 sea wall. In 1891, there still remained, about sixty yards above the Confederate fort, the lower part of the ancient headland, pro- jecting about thirty yards from the general line of the shore and forming a sharp 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-centennary 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."* 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 part of the cove below the new wharf remains as it was in 1803. The description of a course in the survey notes of a patent to William Sherwood f "and by the same [Back River] to Sandy Bay, to a persimmon tree under Block House Hill, thence under * Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at James- Town, p. 7. fVa. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 384, et seq. 16 THE SITE OF OLD "jAMES TOWNE. " 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. FYom patents issued to Alexander Stonar in 1637, and to Richard Sanders in 1644, for land situated on the first ridge; to Edward Challis in 1643, to Radulph 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. The Spraggon tract indicates approximately the position of part of " the way leading towards the mayne," near the head of the island. From the preceding data the shape of the headland during the "James Citty " period, as exhibited on the map, was deter- mined. 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 formed. Wave action developed in the long reach of wide water extending in a northwesterly direction has been the de- stroying agent, the waves of every passing steam vessel contrib- uting to the work of destruction. From the observation of the height of storm waves at James- town Island, it seems evident that their abrading effect does not reach to greater depths than three or four Ret 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. * Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 466; Book II, pp. 11, 12; Book IV, p. 88. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." l7 LANDING PLACE OF THE FIRST SETTLERS. THE 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 channel, but little or none on its sides. The above remark is intended to apply particularly to the vicinity of James- town Island. At other localities on James River extensive bat- tures 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 seventj^-five yards of it, 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 referred to, is about three hundred and fifty yards from the shore. The contours also exhibit a stretch of channel upwards of two hun- dred 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 island extended to the part of the channel having the steep sides dur- ing the seventeenth century. According to Master George Percy's Discourse, the ships, at the first landing place of the settlers, were moored to trees standing on the river bank, contiguous to which the water depth was six fathoms. The modern contours of the channel, as has been pointed out, could not 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 settkrs •debarked May 14, 1607, and of which Percy wrote, "where our 18 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " shippes doe lie so neere the shoare that they are nioored to the Trees in six fathom water." The landing was well selected for convenience of discharging the ships' cargoes and very few similarly as well-conditioned exist on James River. As Archer's Hope, on the mainland op- posite the lower end of the island, was regarded as a very desir- able 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. THE first fort, "which was triangle wise, having three Bul- warkes at every corner like a halfe Mooneand foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them," was completed June 15 — the 31st day after the first settlers disembarked.''- As there is no information extant as to the site of the first fort, that detail will have to be arrived at inductively. It was not at the original landing place, for, from the letter of Sir Thomas Dale, of May 25, 161 1, t " to the President and Counsell of the Companie of Adventurers and Planters in Virginia," it is learned that imme- diately after his arrival at James Towne to succeed Lord La Warre as deputy governor, "a bridge to land our goods safe and dry upon," /. e., a wharf, was constructed by Captain New- port and "his Mariners." The construction of this wharf is alluded to in the " Breife Declaration, "I 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 * Percy's Discourse. t T/te Genesis of the Uuifed States, p. 4SS. t A Breife Declaraiion of the Plantation of Vir.uinia, &c., McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 103-142. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 19 for vessels to lie against the shore in front of the fort, which, therefore, as above stated, was not at the original landing-place. It 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 valley at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge. Thus situated, the guns of its north bastion would have swept the 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 succes- sor, the Confederate fort of 1861. In the above described posi- tion the branch of the swamp between the second and fourth ridges would have afforded additional protection 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 i86r, 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 valley. 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 " Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433. 20 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWXE." quantit^'e of Ibure 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 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.-'- 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 ap- pears the following: ' ' 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 quantityeof foure acres within which those build- ings that weare erected, could not in any man's judgement, neither did stand above five yeares S: that not without continual} reparations." The part of the " Declaration " from which the above is ex- tracted is ambiguous and obscure, Henrico and James Townc 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 Ralph Hamor, who, as appears from the following, gives the area of Henrico as seven acres; " and in the beginning of September, 161 1, he [Dale] set from lamestown, and in a day & a halfe, landed at a place where he purposed to seate & builde, where he had not bin ten dales before he had very strongly impaled seuen English Acres of ground for a towne. "t 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, because the second paragraph above quoted from the " Declaration " states that the paled town covered four acres. Shortly after Captain John Smith became president of the colony (September, 1608) the ph\n of the fort was reduced to * Idiif, pp. 154, 47 f- "t" A True Discourse of fkc pirseiit rsia/c of J''t/[<;iK;n, p. 29. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 21 "a five-square form."* This is construed to apply to the form of the town, after it was enlarged as noted above. The safest, and, therefore, the most natui'al 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 present cemetery, thence northwesterly by "the old Create Roade " 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 Rich- ard Lawrence's tract, and in the line of its prolongation about at the level of great tides— eight feet above low water^r-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 Create Road," judging from its name, was of great antiquity. It was probably 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 161 1, 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 un- necessary as a defence against the Indians. LOCATIONS OF BLOCK HOUSES. FOR preventing incursions of the Indians across the isthmus, Captain John Smith, in the Spring of 1609, " built a Block- house 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, * Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433. t Va. Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82. 22 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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 WilliaiTi Berkeley, in September, 1676, to oppose the entrance of Bacon's men to "James Citty "* must have been situated on the north side of Block House Hill at the southern end of the isthmus. There were also, according to Ralph Hamor, two block houses "to observe and watch least the Indians at anytime should swim over the back river and come into the Island." He does not, however, give their locations. DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN. THE cluster of huts constituting the habitations of the first hundred settlers, enfolded in its chrysalis-like stockade, was hardly entitled to the appellation of town. The term city, given the collection of unpretentious 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. f 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 called " dug-outs." *The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676, byT. M. — Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, p. 21. t Works, Captain John .Smith, p. 957. (Tiie references in this mono- graph to " Works, Captain John Smith," are from Prof Edward Arher's edition.) THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 23 After Newport's departure, hot weather and general illness 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,t 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 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.§ About a year later twenty ad- ditional 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 dififerent 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, "y where also was situated the well, prior to digging which the settlers drank the slimy, brackish water of the river, thus bringing on serious enteric troubles. The well water, naturally enough, was filled with organic matter and was sometimes brackish. It was found in an unsanitary condition by Dale in 161 1, resulting probably from its proximity to the huts. Dale proposed, among other improvements to be made in the town, the digging of a new well. In 1617 the new well was found to be polluted. ^'^ 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 "^ Ibid, pp. 10, 96, 392. ^^ Ibid, pp. 105, 409. X Ibid, pp. 502, 503. \Purchas His Filgriines, Lib. IX, p. 1752. II Works, Captain John Smith, pp. 154, 47}. ° Ibid, p. 612. '^Ibid, p. 486. ^^ Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535. 24 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWXE." site of the fort, its elevation was not less than seven or eight feet above low water.* 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, t 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-foure."! Dr. Simmonds gives the width of the streets between the lines of huts and the palisades at eight to ten yards. § 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 * The depth of the well in the fort is given by Strachey in Purchas His Pilgruiies at six or seven fathoms. This, evidently, is a misprint, and shou]d read si.\ or seven feet. The level of water in wells on the island follows that of the tides. The bottom of an ancient well on the third ridge is about ijo feet below low tide. A proper depth for a well in the fort would probably have been 7 to gt^ feet, depending on the elevation of the ground. t Works, Captain John Smith, p. 612. % Purchas His PilgriDies, IJbcr IX, pj). 1752, 1753. ^ Works, Captain John Smith, p. 4(17. II The Genesis of the Ihiitcd Slates, \). 492. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 25 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 different structures above enumerated were situated within the triangular fort, whose area was a small 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 of unseasoned or sappy timber being used for the log houses, but five or six remained serviceable in iGiy.f 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 dwellings at " James Citty," a seemingly insufficient number to accommodate the new set- tlers 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 progress. On February 20, 1636, a law was enacted by the Grand Assem- bly X 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 * Hamor's True Discourse, p. 33. t Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535. j Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689. 26 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " by twenty-four feet in plan, were erected. Within the year fol- lowing all 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. r In the latter year .Sir William Berkeley, the new governor, arrived bearing instruc- tions from the Royal government to rebuild the town with brick houses. According to the instructions every person who, ' ' within a convenient time," should erect in any town of the colony a brick dwelling sixteen by twenty-four feet with a cellar 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.":{: 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.§ 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 well at their hands if they [the mem- bers of the colonial council] will each of them build one or more houses there." II 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 erected at "James Citty" thirty-two brick houses, forty by twenty feet in plan inside, apparently twt) stories high, and * McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 247-249. Governor Harvey and Council to Privy Council, January, 1639. t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, pp. 466, 5S7, 5S8, 595, ^■gS, 689, 730. Reference is made hereinafter to the incompleteness of the records. i Instructions to Governor Berkeley and Council, August, 1641. — McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 383. 'i Hen'nig' s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 252. II Instructions to Governor Berkeley, McDonald Papers, Vol. i, p. 414. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 27 roofed with slate or tile.* 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 Rebellion, the community held but six- teen or eighteen dwellings, most "as is the church built of brick, faire 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, "t The unoccupied houses were some of those which had been ordered built by statute of December, 1662, but had never been completed,;]] 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 will 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 initi- ate 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 Residence. 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 by those of the Councell 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. * Hening''s Statutes, Vol. II, p. 172. t Burvvell MS., Force' s Historical Tracts, Vol. I, Bacons Proseedings. % British State Papers, Colonial, No. 62. \ McDonald Papers, Vol. VI, p. 165. 28 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 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,^" md 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. f 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 Rubbish, and three or four good inhabited Houses, tho' the Parish is of pretty large Extent, but less than others. "§ In 1S07, there were two dwellings on the island, the Jacquelin-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. || POPULATION OF THE TOWN AND COLONY. DURING the first eighteen years of the settling of \'irginia there were great fluctuations in the population of the colony, and also of "James Forte" and "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 toma- hawk. During the first eight months the fort's population * The Present State of Virgmia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 2^. ■\Hening''s Statutes, Vol. Ill, pp. 193 and 197. X Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IX, p. 232. >/.The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25. 11 Va. Land Pat. Records, Rook \'III, p. 3S4. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 29 dwindled from one hundred and five to a little band of thirty- eight persons, the smallest number that the colony ever held. By the arrival of several reinforcements during the twenty-one months following (January, 1608. to October, 1609), its popu- lation was increased to upwards of 490.^ Within eight months the above number was reduced by death from starvation, cli- matic illness, and pestilence, to about sixty persons. Fresh accessions under Gates and La Warre 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. Between December, 1606, and November, 1619, it is estimated that 2,540 persons emigrated to Virginia, of whom 1,640 died.f 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 7,289.1 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 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 161 6, 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. ^^ * Works, Captain John Smith, p. 486. The numbers reported brought by different vessels indicate a less number, t The First Republic in America, pp. 285, 329. Xlbid, p. 612. I The Getiesis of the United States, p. 1064. II The Unmasked Face. % 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. 30 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " A census taken in 1623 gives the population of the town at 183. It also shows that durino 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 allure- ments which would demand expenditures of money, and probably but few opportunities for making it by trade. The simple, prim- itive tastes of the settlers, coupled with their general poverty, made shops superfluous. In 1625 the town had one merchant's store. t An attempt was made in 1649 to hold a bi-weekly mar- ket. This was a complete failure and, si.K years later, the act providing for the market was repealed. ;|; Nearly all who came to the colony, except the officials, had all to make and little to spend. The population of the town, therefore, did not -keep pace with that of the colony, in which, after about the first twenty-five years, it slowly but steadily in- creased. In 1634 it amounted t0 5,ii9;§ in 1649, to i5,ooo;|| in 1665, to 40,000; 'l^ in 16S1, to 70,000 or 80,000;° and in 1715 to 95,000." 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 periodically doubled by the meetings of the assembly and court. * McDonald Papers, Vol. I. t The First Republic in America, p. 623. X Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, pp. 362, 397. estate Papers, Colonial, Vol 8, No. 65, 1634, l)e jarnette Papers. II Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. II. - / Perfect Description of Vir- gi?iia, p. I. Tl Winder Papers, Vol. 1, p. 1S7. °Sainsbury Abstracts, Vol. 1681-16S5, par. 275. Of tliis number 76 per cent, were freemen. ^^ Chalmer's American Colonies, Vol. II, p. 7. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 31 SUFFERINGS OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. THE settlement near the head of Jamestown Island was at first called "James Forte" and "James Towne," usually the latter. After the fort was enlarged in 1608, and until about 1620, or shortly after the close of Sir Thomas Smythe's admin- istration as governor of the London Company, it was almost invariably referred to by the latter appellation. The sufferings of the colonists during the above period have probably never been surpassed or even equalled 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 communicated 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, and impure water, did their share in decimating the colony. The remedies then in use doubtless increased the mortality, bringing fatal results to many who, without them, 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. As the colonists were but meagerly supplied with provisions from England and raised but few food products, their labor be- ing principally employed in producing tobacco and other articles for export, for the benefit of the London Company, their sub- sistence during the first four or five years was derived principally from the Indian, either by force or barter. They were not per- 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 let- ters to and from England were intercepted and proffers of assist- ance to the company in behalf of individual colonists from their friends were declined, \vith the assurance that they were well provided for. None was allowed to leave Virginia, except by 32 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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. ''~ The settlers were, to all purposes, in a state of servitude, from which, as a special favor, some were offered release on conditi C THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 49 angular fort, it is not probable that the graveyard was. To have lived continually in such close proximity to their 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 bi- centennary of the advent of the English,* " as it were by general consent the discovery of the oldest stone became an object of general emulation." * '^ * "beyond 16S2, nothing legible could be traced, but from the freshness of the marble bearing this date contrasted with the surrounding masses of mutilated 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 tombstones 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. ''^ Report on the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at Jamestown, Va., page 9. t Colonel Wm. Perry's at Westover. Colonel Perry was member of House of Burgesses and subsequently member of the Council. 50 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " Reference is now made to two grants to Thomas Hampton, Gierke, 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 earlier, 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 follows: 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 boundary was a meridian passing "by Friggett land- ing, "f The approximate position of "Friggett Landing" is learned from the probable position of a grant to Richard Clarke in 1646.:!: As shown on the map the Bauldwin tract agrees with its description. In 1644 Richard 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 Radulph Sprag- gon." The word "upon" in the phrase " upon the blockhouse land" in the Challos patent should be foicards, for Challos is given as the southern boundary of Sanders in the latter' 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 * Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book II, p. 105. t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IV, p. 196. X Ibid, Book II, p. 47. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 51 approximately the former site of Block House Hill, below which was the land of Sanders, adjoining whom on the south was Challos. Next below came a space, probably unoccupied ex- cept by part of the highway, below which, but not adjoining, was Spraggon, all about as shown on the "Map of James 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 River 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 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 wall, 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 52 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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. Finall}', until 1644 the first ridge belonged to the block house, and the land at the w^estern 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 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 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 small fraction of those who died at "James Citty. "'^ 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 skulls had been perforated by a musket ball and several buckshot, which it still held, suggesting a military execution. Soon after being exposed to the air the skeletons crumbled. From the evidence of the White patent and the positions of * Meade's Old Churches atid Fatiiilics of Virginia, Vol. 1, p. iii. THE TOWER RUIN. Viewed from eastern parapet of Confederate fort of iS6i. THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE." 53 the skeletons, it would appear that the churchyard extended from the junction of the Back Street with the "old Create Road," 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 availa- ble annals of the colonists. The first brick church and its successor would to-day be re- garded as very plain and unpretentious chapels. They were rectangular in plan, having the customary high pitched roofs on the church and probably also on the tower, and the aisle paved with brick and the chancel with tiles. The tower, situated at the western end, on account of being disproportionately large in comparision with the rest of the structure, 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 wall, 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 disappeared, it seems likely that the tower was designed and probably built 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, in so-called English bond, is quaintly embellished, 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 54 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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, probably formerly a cenotaph, from which are missing inlaid brasses with which it was embossed. In its present position it does not appear to mark a tomb, for it would thus show a viola- tion of the time-revered custom, formerly universally observed in Christian burials, to place the feet towards the rising sun. Whose "death in life" it commemorated will probably ever re- main one of the mysteries of this mysterious island. 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, facing almost the same point of the compass, 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 articulated pilasters at the western corners, broad friezes at each story and imder the eaves and its exterior faces broken by offsets at each story. THE COLONIAL LEGISLATURE. WHEN Capt. Smith became president of the colony, in 1608, he styled the meeting of the colonists which he called to an- nounce 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 Beverly, this custom obtained until 1680, when Governor Culpeper, " taking advantage of some disputes among Works, Captain John Sini//i, \). 149. THE MYSTERIOUS TABLET. The tablet is 5 feet 7^ inches long by 3i)i inches wide. The black sur- faces show the channelings in the stone formerly filled with metal. The inscription plate was about ig by jo%. inches, and the height of the draped figure 24yi inches. The Site of Old "James Towne," 1607-1698. Copyright, 1903, by Samuel H. Yonge. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 55 them," caused the two bodies to hold their sessions in separate apartments,* the Council 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 Councill."t 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 Beverly. 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 Rebellion. 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 unwillingness to have the councillors 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," * History of the Present State of Virginia, by Robert Beverly, p. 187. t Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 497. X The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon' s Rebellion in Virginia, in the Years i6j5-i6j6, p. 13. — Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I. — "T. M." is supposed by Campbell and Fiske to have been Thomas Mathews, son of Samuel Mathews, governor of Virginia, 1657- 1659. (Campbell's History of Virginia, p. 284, and Fiske's Old Vir- ginia and her Neighbours, 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. Standard, Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. I. (1S93-1894), pp. 201 and 202. He was a timid, cautious man, who unwillingly became the rep- resentative of Stafford county in the first Assembly after the " Long Assembly." 56 THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE." which title it bore until the session of June, 1680, when the former appellation was revived. "JAMES CITTY" STATE HOUSES. THE first General Assembly, as previously stated, was convened in the third church, referred to in the last chapter as hav- ing 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 16 19 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.* During the next six decades, while "James Citty " remained the seat of government, there were apparently four different state house buildings, all 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 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 building, therefore, most probably consti- tuted the first state house. .* * Hening's Siafutes, Vol. I, p. 120. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 57 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 sixty-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 until about 1665, the colo- ny'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 hun- dred yards, respectively, east of the first state house. About the above year a house was purchased or built by the colonial gov- ernment on the third ridge about two hundred and forty yards northeast of the brick church, and this served as the state house until burned by Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., in September, 1676. During the ten years following, or until about 1686, the expe- dient of using taverns for meetings of the legislature was again resorted to. In the above year the re-building of the statehouse was completed. As it was on the site of its predecessor, 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,' 58 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWXE." 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 AVilliamsburg;. 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. ^'^ One year later, during the session of the Grand Assembly beginning January 6, 1 639-40, f 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,'! "all that capital messuage or tenement now used lor a court house late in the tenure of Sir John Harvey, Knt., situ- ate 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. "§ 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 buying Harvey's houses and lot, one of the former being the court house. It is more than possible that the Grand Assembly had * McDonald Papers, Vol . I, p. 249. \ Hening'' s Statides, Vol. I, p. 226. — The acts of several of the Assem- blies 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 men- tioned in the land patents, in official correspondence, and in the min- utes of the London Company. J The poll assessment of January, 1640, would have become due Jan- uary, 1 64 1. ^Transcripts of Miscellaneous MSS., by Conway Robinson, p. 1S8. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 59 also been meeting- in the same house. It seems most probable that the above building was the one mentioned in patents re- ferred to below as "the old state house," whose location is given further on. In a letter of instructions from the King to Governor Berkeley and the colonial Council 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 act was confirmed by another passed at the session of March, 1642.* In February, 1643, a patent was issued to Captain Robert 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. f 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. 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.;]; This locates the state house with ref- erence 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 Anti- quities. * Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 267. t Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 944. Hutchinson's patent reads "bounded South upon the river North to- wards 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. % Va. Land Pat. Records, Rook II, p. 10. 60 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " On March 30, 1655, Sir William Berkeley sold to Richard 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.* 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 ?nd Thomas Stegg, January i, 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.f From what follows the patent apparently did not include the house, or, more correctly, its ruins. Henry Randolph, clerk of the court, sold the ruins of the three houses and the grounds they respectively covered, April 7, 1671,1 as follows: The eastern house ruins and ground 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 Ludwell. By his will, proved May 15, 1671, Thomas Stegge left to Thomas Ludwell his interest in a house bought jointly with Ludwell of Henry Randolph. || Ludwell subsequently secured a patent for a half acre of land adjoining the house ruins and sold the property to Sir William Berkeley for one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, March 17, i672.*^ It seems most probable that the building erected by Governor Berkeley between 1642 and 1655 and sold by him to Richard Bennett in the latter year, the one referred to in the patent to Ludwell and Stegg of 1667, that sold by Randolph to Thomas * Henmg''s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 407. t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VI, p. 223. X Conway Robinson' s Transcripts of Miscellaneous jManusciipts, p. 25S, from General Court Rule Book No. 2, pp. 155, 617. \ Colonel Gary came to Virginia in 1645, constructed the fust fort on site of Fort Monroe, and was killed there in an engagement witii the Dutch, in 1667. II Genealogical Gleanings in England, p. 102. \ Robinson's Transcripts, p. 258. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 61 Ludvvell in 1671, and by Ludwell 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, 164 1, and paid for in January following, and that the building previously referred to as being built by Berkeley was an addition made by him on the western side of the Harvey buildings. 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 Richard 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.* Richard 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 " Friggett Landing," to the marsh below " Pyping Point, "f 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 re- sulted from the neglect of the clerks and the destruction of the *Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IV, p. 88. \Ibid, Book IV, p. 196. Xlbid, Book III, p. 36S. 62 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." records by " two severall fires. "''^ The above indicates that the repositories of the records — two state houses — had been burned. 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 Assem- bly passed an act during the session beginning December i, 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, f 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 pri- vate 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 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 ex- •change were appropriated and ordered paid to Thomas Hunt and Thomas Woodhouse, respectively, t 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 liabilities 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. § In 1654 a grant of an acre lot on the southern water front of * Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 245. '\Ibid, Vol. I, p. 425. XHening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 12. llbid, Vol. II. p. 13. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 63 the town was made to Thomas Woodhouse.* 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. f 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 house, and, with a view to making the necessary taxation for the purpose as light as possible, it was resolved to solicit subscrip- tions, f 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. | The question as then submitted was, ' ' Since the charge the country is yearly at for houses for the quar- ter 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 ex- pence, accompanied with the dishonour of all our laws being made and our judgments given in alehouses." On the day following a committee of six burgesse's was ap- pointed to confer with the governor about a state house. || * Va. Land Pat. Records, Book III, p. 380. t Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 38. t Ibid, Vol. II, p. 204. II Ibid, Vol. II, p. 2o.'5. 64 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." Under date of April lo, 1665, Thomas Ludwcll, colonial sec- retary 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,* 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 or any data of record definitely fixing its loca- tion. The following extract from a message addressed to the House by the governor during the session of the Assembly of 1685 t shows that the third and fourth state house buildings oc- cupied 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 Council by some of yr. members, and doe much wonder, you should propose soe un- reasonably, as to desire our concurrence, in ye memorial [re- moval ?] 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. Ludwell." 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 at Tindall's Point, J now known as Gloucester Point, on York river. "James Tovvne," however, was not yet to be abandoned, and in about eight years the re- building of the state house on the old site was begun. * Ibid, Vol. II, pp. 172, 173. t McDonald Papers. Vol, VII, pp. 379, 3S0. t Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 405. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 65 In the interim between the burning- of the third state house and its rebuilding, 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.* In the 1685 session of the General Assembly an agreement was entered into with Mr. William 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. f Sherwood's house was un- 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 following quotation from a patent to William Sherwood, re- corded April 20, 1694: ;{; "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 River 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 building stood on the third ridge. The site of the fourth state house was unknown until 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 Rebellion. 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 council 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 * McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 372, 376. "^Ibid, pp. 385, 388. % Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384. 66 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." accords with the plan of the fourth state house, the western end of which, as discovered by excavating its foundations, adjoined the easternmost of Phihp Ludwell's three houses referred to below.* The Ludvvell tract had an area of one and one-half acres, in the shape of an oWong 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, f or one hundred and 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 walls found during the preceding month by probing 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 by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities to depths of one to five feet, when the brick foundations of a for- mer row of buildings about two hundred and forty feet long by about twenty-four to forty-six feet wide, were disclosed. The foundations are on the highest part of the ridge where its eleva- tion is about two and one-half to three and one-half feet above great tides. The ground falls gently from the foundations to- wards 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 intc 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 buildings to the ruins of Philip Ludwell's houses and the easternmost to the state house. All 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 ex- * Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, p. 16. — Bacon's Rebellion. fThe chain used in the "James Citty " surveys was two poles, or thirty-three feet long. m^^ ^m\) ^n m t/f o^ CO o THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 67 ception 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 walls 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 ear- lier houses would, therefore, have been twenty by forty feet, 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 gen- erally 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 walls. The buildings appear to have been divided into apartments about twenty feet square by the fire places and heavy partition walls. 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 probably uti- lized as lockers or closets. The obliquity of the T partition 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 indi- cate that the main walls belonged to buildings erected at different periods from the other parts referred to. The floors of several of the rooms were paved with brick, parts of the paving still remaining. Brick foundations of several porches projecting from the south- ern 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 eighteen to twenty-two inches thick. At the eastern end of the middle Lud- well house are what appear to have been the foundations of an- other and smaller porch eight and one-half feet square inside 68 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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 paved with 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 well. On the floor of the cellar were several sheets of melted lead, and among the brick debris were a " sacar " shot, also two bombshells — one of the calibre of a demi-culverin, the other of a sacar — and frag- ments of exploded shells. The above warlike relics may have been fired in 1676 from Bacon's trench near the north end of the isthmus. The cellar is entered by a flight of steps on its north- ern side. A pipe, scissors, steel sewing-thimble, copper candle- stick, ladies' riding-stirrup, and an old bottle, all of quaint and antique shapes, were found in the cellar. The bond of the brick work of the cellar walls 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 Rhenish 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 de- cade being German or Dutch brickmakers and bricklayers. The "Country House" is separated from the Ludwell build- 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 sev- enty-four feet by twenty feet within the walls. It was divided by a fourteen-inch cross wall into two parts, one about forty-two. the other about thirty-one feet long. Projecting from the mid- dle of the north wall are foundations of a wing about fifteen feet square within the walls, referred to below. On each side 01 * Encyclopedia Brifamiica, Vol. IV, page 461. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 69 the wing is a projection which may have belonged to bay win- 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 building. 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 As- sembly, held at Jamestown in May, 1684 ^^ it is learned that during that session a committee consisting of " Coll° Kendall — Capt: Fra: Page — Capt: Robinson — Coll" 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 f 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 Hon""" Coll" PhilHp Ludwell for the Rebuild- 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 Rebellion, and the Journal of the General Assembly held at "James Citty " in November and December, 1685,;!: quoted from above. Dunng 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 * Colonial Record Book, Vol. 85, pp. 168-207, P- R- 0-, London, Eng- land. t 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 files of the London P. R. O. J McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 312, ^/^^^. 70 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." money, Mr. Auditor is desired to take bond from Col. Ludwell for ye full compleating of ye House, in such manner as shall be fully satisfactory to his Excellency ye Council cS: ye House of Burgesses answerably good and equivalent to the condition of ye same."* 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 ad- joining the Assembly room was a smaller 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 (Effingham) and the House, and no doubt had much to do with the subsequent persecution of Robert 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 Council was on the first floor — probably represented by the larger of the two divisions, the eastern, formed by the fourteen-inch cross wall. The smaller, 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 ofl"by a wooden petition in 1685 or 1686 for an office for the Secretary of State. It is likely that there was a wide hall 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 door- way while on his way up to the Assembly, it seems likely that the hall contained the staircase. This position of the staircase, however, is purely conjectural. As the foundations of the north wing are but fourteen inches thick, thev probably carried walls but one story high, which prior to 1686 may have belonged to the office of the clerk of the Assembly. Subjoined are extracts from the Journal of the Assembly in December, 1685, the authority for some of the foregoing deduc- tions: ♦ Ibid, p. 366. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 71 "Resolved by ye House, that ye room in ye state House, ■called ye Porch Chamber be kept and appropriated an office for ye Clk of ye Assbly and yt Robert Beverley''' ye present Clerk take possession thereof and therein Lodge and place all Re- cords, 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 Excellency 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 RoBT Beverley, Clk Assbly" "Xber 8th 1685. By ye House of Burgesses To his Excellency and ye Council. This House having read and considered yr Exclies 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, will please to concur with them therein, for although they doe acknowledge 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 whilst sitting; there being nothing spoken or proposed in ye House, that was not equally to be heard there, as wel as in ye Assembly room itselfe, besides ye same gave continuall opportunity to all sorts of psons to * 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. 72 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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 Walls and raising ye floor will become as safe & commodious for preservation of ye Records, as its possible any other place can be made, wch they doubt not will soe appear to yr Excellency and ye Councel, to whom they submit ye manner of doing and directions thereof, and againe request ye acceptance thereof, to that purpose. Test Robert Beverley Clk Assbly. The following answer was ordered to be returned. By His Excellency & Council. 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 will 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 walls 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 finishd before ye next general court, att ye charge of ye Country, to be paid for ye next Gene- ral Assembly, and that you agree with some workman accord- ingly." It is interesting to note that Robert 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 James II, dated August i, 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 privilege of electing its clerk, transferring to the governor authority to fill the posi- tion by appointment, and ordered Beverley's prosecution for THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 73 altering the records.^ Beverley died shortly before April, 1687. By an order of the General Assembly there was to be placed a " railing- with rails 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 ve House, "t The above is taken to mean that the railing was to be placed across the Assembly room to exclude spectators from the part of the hall appointed for 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 tiles 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. 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 cellar walls 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 case of the first, third and fourth, they formed part of a row or block of buildings. 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, 'j: could not afford out of its pov- * Hening's Statutes, Vol. Ill, page 41. t McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 397. XSainsbiir/s Calendar of State Papers, Vol. 16S1-16S5. 74 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOVVNE." erty and under its heavy burden of taxation, to have any better public buildings. The annual allowances of Culpeper as gover- nor in 1 68 1, alone, drained the colony of 2,150 pounds sterl- ing,* which, with the perquisite of five hundred pounds sterling for house rent, reduced to present values, aggregated about $50,000. Recurring 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- cil, t A prison was probably erected after the completion of the fourth state house, for one was burned in the fire of Octo- ber, 1698. X 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 college of Wil- liam and Mary was used as the state house. In 1705 the capitol building at Williamsburg was completed. It was occupied un- til burned about 1747. The college was again used as a state house until 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 ex- isting state of war, it was decided by an act of assembly passed in the above year to transfer the seat of government to Rich- mond, which statute went into effect in 17S0. THE TURF AND BRICK FORTS. THE earliest fort of the settlers, called 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 alluded to, written by the Rev. John Clayton in 1688, || about two years after his return to England, it appears that during his residence * T/ie Present State of Virginia, p. 31, Hartwell, Cliilloii and Blair. t McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 356. X Present State of Virginia, p. 25, Hugh Jones, A. M. II Force' s Historical Tracts, Vol. III. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 75 at "James Citty," from 1684 to 1686, there was in the town an old dismantled earth work, quadrangular in plan, "with some- thing like Bastions at the four corners." In a grant to Henry Hartwell in 1689,* the western line of his tract is described 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 Ralph Hamor in 1624, the time of its construction must have been subsequent to that year, or to that of his death, 1626, on the nth of Octo- ber of which year his will was probated and his widow, Eliza- beth, qualified as administratrix, f It is possible that the turf fort was the one referred to by Bev- erley, as follows: "The news of this plot (the Birkenhead con- spiracy 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 be a curb upon all such traitorous attempts for the future. But the coun- try, thinking all danger over, only raised a battery of some small pieces of cannon. "J In the account of the town by Mr. Richard Randolph in 1837,11 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 Ran- dolph was the last erected at "James Citty." The site of the former "magazine" is shown on the map. *Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 701. t Transcripts Robinson, MSS., p. 159. j History of the Present State of Virginia, p. 56. II Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, pp. 303, 304 76 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." It is assumed that, in making his observations, Mr. Randol])h 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 river 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. Randolph 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 ha\'e 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 to bring it to a fair line for receiving protection work. Since 1S96 the recession of the bank has been very slight at the locality referred to. When viewed by Mr. Randolph, 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 otf shore, where, according to the above deductions, the fort would have «:tood, are what appear to be masses of masonry submerged from one and one-half 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. Randolph'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. Randolph styles them, and that it was situated at the beginning o{ the THE SITE OF OLD '"JAMES TOWNE." 77 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 passed* for build- ing five forts, one of which was to beat " 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, f The above act un- doubtedly refers to the brick fort. The contractors for building the fort were Major Theophilus Hone, Colonel William Drum- mond, and Colonel Matthew Page. The funds for its construc- tion do not appear to have been raised as late as September, 1672.;!; 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. || From what has preceded it is evident that the fort referred to by Mr. Randolph was the brick fort described by Mr. Clayton, that it was situated in the extension of the depression between * Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 255-257. t McDonald Papers, Vol. V, p. 4. X Hening^s Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 293, 294. \ Robinson's Transcripts, General Court Records, 1670-1676, p. 149. il Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III. 78 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." the third and fourth ridges, and that the masonry debris now- lying under water off the uppermost of the four jetties now- 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 built 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 \/ith available information, for in 1694 the only buildings known to have been standing on the third ridge were the " Country House " and the state house. It is probable that the building reputed to have been a magazine was also standing and possibly one or two dwelling houses. There are no signs of house foundations on the ridges above the third ridsfe. ^^ TAMES Ciity," in its best days, was little more than a strag- 1 gling hamlet, holding besides a church and a few unostenta- tious public buildings, hardly ever more than a score of dwellings, and a larger permanent population than one hundred souls. It was the foreshore on which the inroUing waves of im- migration, on their way up the " Create River," 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, foiled 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 lelt prone. The town must have been held in disfavor, and avoided as a place of residence by many of the early colonists, on ac- count of a well-earned reputation of being " insalubritious " in summer. The period of its life was not propitious for town building, as the principal efforts of the colonists were then de- voted to agriculture, particularly tobacco raising. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 79 Few relics of the old town mark its site, but its name is im- perishable. Its requiem is unceasing sung in the rhythmic surgings of the " King's River." APPENDIX. AN ABRIDGED DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD EMPLOYED IN LOCATING "the NEW TOWNE," FROM THE VIRGINIA LAND PATENT RECORDS. The following patents were used for locating "the New Towne: " (i) John Pott, " Doctr. of Physicke," for three acres "in the new Towne," dated August ii, 1624. (2) Same grantee, for 12 acres, including 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 within 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) William Sherwood, for 308 acres in James City and James City Island, dated April 20, 1694. The Sherwood tract included 3^ acres "purchased by him the said Wm. Sherwood of John Page Esqr; " i acre (see (9) be- low); 133 acres 35 9-10 chains "being heretofore granted by patent dated the 6th day of May 1665 to one John Knowles;" 2Sj4 acres "granted by patent dated the 4th day of October, 1656, to one John Bauldwin;" and the remainder, "being for- merly granted to Richard James by patent dated the 5th day of June, 1657." (6) Henry Hartwell, for 2 acres, i rood, 24 i-io poles, dated April 20, 1689. (7) Richard Holder, in "James Citty," for 8 acres, i rood, 5 poles, dated January 28, 1672. 80 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." (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 called the Country house," etc., dated April 23, 1681. The tracts represented by the patents are shown on the ac- companying " Plat of the Tracts." They were connected by means of their common boundaries, as follows : (i) 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, ii-ioand 10-9 are common to Knowles (4) and Sherwood (5). (4) The lines 4-1 1, ii-io and 10-9 are also common to Sher- wood (5) and Sherwood (9). (5) Lines ii-ioand 10-9 of Hartwell are common to Sher- wood (5), Sherwood (9) and Knowles (4), and Hartwell 36-11 forms part of line 4-1 1 of each of the above tracts, (5) and (9). (6) Line 19-20 Hartwell (6) differs i^°in azimuth from the line 19-26 of Holder (7). The length of the line 19-20, how- ever, being but 51^ feet, the above difference of azimuth would change the position of the point 20 but one foot, a too insignifi- cant difference to be considered in a compass survey. Hart- well'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 wes- tern 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 Run on James River," and the same end of the line for the Holder tract is described as be- ing " at high water mark on James River side at the mouth of a small run entering thereinto." The runs are undoubtedly one and the same. The patents show that Orchard Run was on the south bank of ; 1 H • -^ H I n > o O 2 i O ■^ -< r n n H D () (jq n H 1-1- T ^ H (D z n < ■D 0) T i-t- 3, > o THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." . 81 the island. As there is but one stream entering the river on that bank that could be designated a run, it was readily identified 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, until 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 su- perposed on the mouth of Orchard Run, previously identified and located on a modern map, and the map as made up from ancient patents rotated around point 26 until its magnetic merid- ian had a western declination of 6}^ degrees.* It was then found that point i of Sherwood (5) fell on the south side of the 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 ac- companying 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 River. A causeway across the swamp before referred to, being prob- *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 approximation. Six and a half degrees appears to be close enough for the class of sur- veys to which it is here applied. 82 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 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, (i) 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 an- cient south shore of the island and the positions of the Pott tracts and the Back Street being established, the Ralph 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 River." The area of the plat of John Harvey f 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 ascer- tained after several trials. From the descriptions of the Harvey and Hamor tracts the position of those of George Menefy ;[: and Richard Stephens, § and also those of the two cross streets, all of which are men- tioned in the descriptions of the two first named, were readily found, and finally the tract of John Chew,|| all as shown on the " Map of lames Citty, Va. , 1607-1698." N. B. — Lines indicated on the " Plat of the Tracts " by num- bers I, 2, 3, 4, II, 10, 9, are part of Sherwood (5) survey. * Va. Land Pat. Record, Book I, p. 3. t Ibid, Book I, p. 5. X Ibid, Book I, p. 4. ? Ibid, Book I, p. i. || Ibid, Book I, p. 7. THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 83 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. 84 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. NOTE. The Ambler MSS. and^'Tlie Site of Old 'James Toicne' i6oj- i6g8r By the publication in April, 1904, of the report of the Libra- rian 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 to- wards the end of April. The collection comprises upwards of 140 MSS. and charts, consisting of original patents, deeds and leases, also copies of other similar documents, certified and uncertified, and copies of three wills, all showing the chain of title of the lands as vested in different owners up to 1809, and, in one instance, dating back to 1649. There is no reference in the papers, however, to grants of the tracts which formed the "New Towne" in 1623, A com- parison of some of the original patents in the collection with their transcripts in the land register's office at Richmond shows that the latter, in the main, are correct, and have been properly interpreted, thus proving the accuracy of the "Map of 'lames Citty,' 1607-1698." As, however, there is no plat of James- town among the papers, they would not have saved the labor and study expended in preparing the above map, and the "Plat of the Tracts," had they been available when the above-men- tioned charts were constructed. The papers comprising the collection contain evidence con- firming the position of the turf fort, and show that it was still standing in 172 1. They also confirm other important features of the map. Among the collection are several skeleton charts 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 as shown on the THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 85 author's map. The agreement of the above chart with the "Map of 'lames Citty,' " in this respect, indirectly comfirms 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 chart 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 Francis Wyatt's lot, and the lot attributed to Captain Roger Smith. The Page tract included the original grant from Harvey to Richard 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 in 1682 reads: "Including ye Ruins Sq"' Kemps Old Brick House." The above house was the first brick house built 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 dwelling house in Virginia becomes approximately 86 THE SITE OF OLD "jAMES TOVVNE." known. The evidence, though sHght, shows that the house was near the southwest corner of the Page tract. Ralph Wormley, while secretary of state, resided on the Page tract, on or very near the Kemp grant. NOV u cttu^i ijiiliiyiliiiit^ !!l!!!!f!'il ill I,. ijjllii i;l i'i pii 111! 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