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 Llb'^AP"' of CONGRESS 
 Tw« Copies Received 
 
 FEB 25 1904 
 
 ^ CopyrigPt Entry 
 
 Cl5^^ ^^""xXc.'no. 
 
 n T f 02 
 COPY 8 
 
 Cop^ri^rJit 1904 
 
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OLD JAMESTOWN 
 
 ( A glance at its History, past and present. ) 
 J^ J»- J*' 
 
 INCE it has been decided to 
 ^ hold "The Anglo-American 
 Settlemen r Tercentenary 
 Expusition" at Norfolk, Vir- 
 ginia, in 1Q07, a great deal ot 
 interest centres about the 
 ruins of "Old Iamestown." 
 the sight of the first per- 
 manent English settlement on Ameri- 
 can soil. 
 
 The history of its foundation takes us 
 back to the beginning of the seventeenth 
 centurv, when a number ot rich and in- 
 fluential Englishmen became interested 
 in Sir Walter Raleigh's schemes "to see 
 an English nation planted in America" 
 and. accordingly, several companies were 
 organized for the purpose of sending col- 
 onists to the New Wf^RLn. 
 
 Those organizations were known as 
 the Eondon and Plymouth companies and 
 King James, being pleased with thei]- 
 plans of colonization, granted the coast 
 
of North America from Cape Fear to the 
 mouth of the Potomac River to the Lon- 
 don company ; and from Long Island to 
 Nova Scotia to the Plymouth company. 
 
 In the year 1606, the former company, 
 at whose head were such influential men 
 as Sir Edward Sackville (afterwards the 
 famous Earl of Dorset) and the Earl of 
 Southampton (the friend of Essex and 
 patron of Shakespeare) fitted out three 
 small ships. 
 
 This pigmy fleet was under the com- 
 mand of Captain Christopher Newport. 
 Captain John Smith, Bartholomew Gos- 
 nold, and Edward Wingfield with Rev. 
 Mr. Hunt acting as chaplain. They set 
 sail from Blackwell December 19th, 1606, 
 but were detained by contrary winds for 
 six weeks within sight of the English 
 coast, while discontentment and disorder 
 daily threatened mutiny among the ad- 
 venturers. Through the influence of the 
 clergyman, Robert Hunt, the explorers 
 became more content and finally reached 
 the West Indies April 21st. 
 
 Hoping to find the coast of North 
 Carolina, where former attempts to col- 
 onize had been made, they rested but a 
 few days on these charming islands and 
 then set sail once more. Being driven 
 out of their course by a violent storm, 
 they found themselves at the mouth ot 
 
Chesapeake bay, where they first caught 
 sight of two points of land which they 
 christened Cape Charles and Cape Henry 
 in honor of the sons of their King. 
 
 They also discovered a beautiful point 
 of land on the western side of this bay, 
 which they appropriately called Point 
 Comfort as it was here they found shelter 
 from the storm. The savages who dwelt 
 upon this land, treated the explorers very 
 kindly and led the way through fields of 
 wavy corn to their village called Kecough- 
 tan (the present town of Hampton), 
 where they entertained their strange 
 guests with corn bread, tobacco and a 
 dance of welcome, musical accompani- 
 ments being played on flutes of reeds. 
 
 As the red men were so friendly to 
 the weary voyagers, the site a beautiful 
 stretch of land, and the climate delight- 
 ful, it seems strange that they did not 
 plant their colony here. However, the 
 members of the genus homo never 
 seem to be satisfied and these explorers 
 acted in a similar manner to the discon- 
 tented man. whom a legend tells us was 
 sent to the forest for a stick. At first he 
 saw many straight smooth sticks, but he 
 said: ' ' Surely there are better ones farther 
 on, " and with this thought in mind he con- 
 tinued to the end of the forest where all 
 he could find was a gnarled tree trunk. 
 
So with the explorers, they left this beau- 
 tiful spot (now a famous winter resort) 
 and sailed for some distance up the James 
 river, where at length they chose a site 
 for their colony on a peninsula lying north 
 of the river, forty miles from its mouth. 
 
 Captain John Smith was one of the 
 bravest of men, but apparently not the 
 wisest, for he considered this tract of 
 land "as a fit place for a great city," 
 whereas it was in reality a very unhealthy 
 spot, having many marshes covered with 
 water at high tide, making the soil an 
 ideal nidus for malaria. The James river 
 at this point is very muddy and the banks 
 of the stream could not (even in those 
 days) have presented any picturesquf 
 appearance. Gosnold was very much 
 opposed to landing here, but the majorit\- 
 were of Smith's opinion and accordingly 
 on the 13th of May. 1607. was made The 
 Ftkst Permanent En(;i.ish Seitlemeni 
 IN rnK Un'ited Sta tes, called Jamestown. 
 in honor of King James. 
 
 Despite Captain Smith's predictions. 
 Jamestown never became a great city, but 
 after struggling against many horrible 
 massacres by the Indians, destructive 
 tires, starvation and sickness, the capitol 
 was moved to Williamsburg in 1700 and 
 the cradle of the United States of America 
 was left to the destruction of the elements. 
 
Now nothing remains of the old his- 
 toric town but the ivy clad tower of the 
 first Protestant church built on American 
 soil and the ruins of the Ambler home- 
 stead, where George Washington and 
 Thomas Jefferson both received a wound 
 to their self pride : the former being 
 jilted by Mary Gary and the latter by 
 Rebecca Burwell. 
 
 In 1893 Mrs. Edward Barney, of Day- 
 ton, Ohio, purchased this neglected land 
 and presented twenty-three acres to the 
 Association for Preservation of Virginia 
 Antiquities. This association cleared 
 away the underbrush and enclosed the 
 ruins of the old church and its burial 
 ground within a wire fence, placing the 
 sacred spot under the surveillance of a 
 custodian, who lives in a picturesque 
 cottage within the earth fortifications 
 erected here by the Gf)nfederates in the 
 late war. 
 
 For many years the land u)-)on which 
 Jamestown once stood has been growing 
 smaller, owing to the rough kisses ot the 
 James river on her clay shores. For 
 seven miles a swift current comes sweep- 
 ing down unobstructed and the action of 
 this current has already changed the one- 
 time peninsula to an island. On the 
 northern end of the island the waves have 
 washed awav the shores to such an extent 
 
that the oldest ruins of Jamestown now 
 lie under water and by rowing in a boat 
 close to shore one can plainly see a mass 
 of brick held together by its original 
 cement, which is all that remains of a 
 powder house built by Captain Smith as 
 a place of safety for arms and ammunition. 
 
 Several years ago Congress made an 
 appropriation of $10,000 to build a sea 
 wall as a protection for this historic spot 
 from further damage, but an extra amount 
 will be necessary for the work^s comple- 
 tion and a bill favoring a second appro- 
 priation has been introduced into the 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 The most interestmg relic of James- 
 town is the old church tower, which is 
 supposed to stand upon the spot where 
 the colonists first worshipped ' ' under an 
 old sail stretched between three or four 
 trees to shadow them from the sun.' 
 After a time a rude structure was built ot 
 logs with a roof of rafts, sedge and earth, 
 which was replaced in 1638 by a brick 
 building 56x28 feet in dimension, with 
 a tower 18 feet square. This building 
 was destroyed by fire in 1676. but shortly 
 afterwards rebuilt and occupied until 
 1 700. Since that time the old church 
 has been gradually crumbling away until 
 nothing remains but the tower. 
 
 Tradition says that the brick fruni 
 
which the church was built came from 
 England. But Dr. Lyon G. Tyler. 
 president of William and Mary college, 
 has attempted to explode this theory, 
 claiming that only a few bricks were 
 brought to this country for ballast in 
 English ships and that the material used 
 in building the old church was made by 
 Alexander Stoner from the clay on James 
 Island, where he was allotted an acre of 
 ground for a brick kiln. 
 
 At that time all brick was called 
 "English brick" according to a law that 
 each brick must be of a certain shape and 
 size and Dr. Tyler thinks that this ac- 
 counts for the belief that the old church 
 and the early mansions along the James 
 river were supposed to have been built of 
 brick made in the mother country. 
 
 Around the ruins of the church is the 
 burial ground, where a few tombs are to 
 be seen and others are being unearthed 
 through excavation made by the "Asso- 
 ciation for Preservation of Virginia An- 
 tiquities." The present wall around the 
 graves was built in 1800 from the frag- 
 ments of a wall still standing at that time 
 and which covered far more space than 
 the more modern enclosure. 
 
 Among the graves discovered here 
 there is one of a truly honest if not 
 righteous man for his epitaph reads : 
 
j^orw 
 
 in tht ^nrisii uf Bhitr 
 
 
 
 
 A (Sr^at ^'ixuier 
 
 ^iUnitiu^ 
 
 for a 3o^«l Bcsiirrertuut. 
 
 Rev. James Blair, the first president 
 ot William and Mary college, is also buried 
 here. On his right side lies his wife, Sarah 
 Blair (daughter of the original Benjamin 
 Harrison, whose name appears upon 
 almost every page of Virginian history), 
 and on his left side is interred Lady Fran- 
 ces Berkeley, the wife of Sir William 
 Berkeley, who at one time was Governor 
 of Virginia. 
 
 In the spring of 1901, under the direc- 
 tion of Mr. John Tyler, the excavation of 
 the whole interior of the church was be- 
 gun and many interesting discoveries 
 made. 
 
 The four walls of the original church 
 were found to be in a fair state of pre- 
 servation to a height from six inches to 
 three feet above the foundation. Lying 
 ncross the north and south of the aisle 
 a tomb was unearthed, which judging 
 from the armorial bearings on the stone, 
 must have once held the body of a knight. 
 
but unfortunateh no trace of the plate 
 containing the inscriptions now remains. 
 Near this tomb was a less pretentious 
 one bearing the following epitaph : "Hert' 
 lyeth John Clough, minister, who depart- 
 ed this life iith of Januar)', ib " and 
 
 in the north-west corner of the church a 
 third t(jmb was found, which contained 
 the skeleton ot a man six feet six inches 
 tall and one foot and hve inches across 
 the shoulders. The skull also was of a 
 pecuHar formation unlike that of the 
 normal white man. 
 
 The unearthing of a knight s tomb fur- 
 nishes conclusive proof that the site of 
 the old church ruins is the exact spoi 
 where the cokmists hrst worshipped as all 
 evidences go to prove this tomb to be 
 that of Sir George Yeardley. who was 
 rrovernor at the time of his death in 1627. 
 In those days it was customary to honc^r 
 persons of distinction, after death, by 
 burying them in the church-yard, and 
 there was no other man during that time 
 who could have been appropriately in- 
 terred in so sacred a s]>ot in a tomb 
 bearing armorial designs. 
 
 The little island (now scarcely two 
 and a half miles long by a half mile wide) 
 which shelters these relics of the early 
 English colonists, has witnessed more of 
 American history than any other place on 
 
this continent, being the fountain head of 
 all American legislative activity and hav- 
 ing received a baptism of patriotic blood 
 in both of the great wars. 
 
 Therefore all true lovers of history 
 should make an effort to visit this most 
 historical spot of our glorious republic 
 during the coming celebration of The 
 Anglo-American Tercentenary Settle- 
 ment Exposition to be held in 1907 at 
 Norfolk. Virginia, only sixty miles dis- 
 tant from "Old Jamestown." 
 
N, MINT., IIOItP«LI< 
 
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 014 443 985 7, 
 
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