Jamestown

“ The ideals that distinguish and guide the United States today trace back to the Virginia settlement where free enterprise, the rule of law, and the spirit of discovery took hold in the hearts and practices of the American people. Noble institutions and grand traditions were established in Jamestown. Amid tremendous difficulties, a determined few worked the land and expanded into the wilderness. Without knowing it, the colonists who built communities at Jamestown laid the foundation for a Nation that would become the ultimate symbol and force for freedom throughout the entire world. ”

“ Jamestown is the site of the first permanent English settlement in America {1607}, the point at which the first representative legislative assembly convened {1619} to set a pattern for self-government in America, the locale of stirring events in Bacon’s Rebellion {1676-77}, and the capital of the Colony of Virginia for 92 years {1607-99}.
The first permanent settlement in America by the English at Jamestown was a visible manifestation of the determination of that nation to establish itself in the New World. ”

“ These valuable objects are a priceless part of the Jamestown that exists today. Collectively they form one of the finest groups of such early material that has been assembled anywhere. Although most are broken and few are intact, they would not be traded for better preserved and more perfect examples that do exist elsewhere. These things were the property and the possessions of the men and women who lived, worked, and died at Jamestown. ”

“ The Settlement at Jamestown.—In 1607 both sub-companies began operations. The Plymouth men sent a fleet to the coast of the present state of Maine, but the colony they tried to plant was a failure. The London Company was more fortunate. Their colonists reached Chesapeake Bay in the spring, and settled about fifty miles above the mouth of a large river, since then known as the James, in honor of the English king. They called their new settlement Jamestown, and at once began to build huts and fortifications. ”

“ We are about to commemorate the settlement of the English at Jamestown three hundred years ago. Under God's blessing, we are not only at peace with all the world, but are bound by ties of close friendship to the great kingdoms and republics on earth. Therefore, we may confidently expect to welcome numbers of their representatives to our three hundredth birthday celebration. Many will be the banners unfurled in waters which ebbed and flowed in awful silence but three hundred years ago, or were stirred only by the paddle of the Indian canoe ”

“ Several months later, in the church at Jamestown, the maid, Ann Burras, was married to one of the settlers, John Laydon, a carpenter by trade. This marriage has been ranked as “the first recorded English marriage on the soil of the United States.” Their child, Virginia, born the next year, was the first to be born at Jamestown. Here was the beginning of family life in the new colony. Soon other women would arrive to help continue, or to establish, new homes. ”

“ It was obvious to everyone that there were too many men for all to remain at Jamestown. John Martin was sent to attempt a settlement at Nansemond, on the south side of the James below Jamestown, while Captain Francis West, brother of Lord De La Warr, was sent to settle at the falls of the James. ”

“ From that hour did it seem as if all the men in Jamestown, save only half a dozen, among whom were Captain Smith, Master Hunt and Master Percy, strove their best to wreck the settlement.
Because Lord De la Warr, the new governor, had not arrived, many of the new comers refused to obey my master, and they were so strong in numbers that it was not possible for him to force them to his will.
Each man strove for himself, regardless of the sick, or of the women and children. ”

“ No attempt will be made to restore Jamestown as it was in 1607 or at any other period. The town was always small and always changing. Jamestown, it might be said, was never a city in the modern concept. It was more a village, a small community. The town of 1607, or 1610, was unlike that of 1623, and that of 1623 was far different from that of 1675. Architecture went all the way from timber and thatch structures to substantial all-brick houses. Even if the town had had a reasonable continuity of building types and plan, known information would be entirely insufficient to allow a restoration. ”

“ Jamestown is served by the Northern Pacific railway, of which it is a division headquarters. At Jamestown is St John’s Academy, a school for girls, conducted by the Sisters of St Joseph. The state hospital for the insane is just beyond the city limits. The city is the commercial centre of a prosperous farming and stock-raising region in the James River valley, and has grain-elevators and flour-mills. Jamestown was first settled in 1873, near Fort Seward, a U.S. military post established in 1872 and abandoned in 1877, and was chartered as a city in 1883. ”

“ For about 2 weeks, explorations were made along both banks of the James, below and above Jamestown, from its mouth to a point as far upstream perhaps as the Appomattox River (Hopewell, Va.) . Parties went ashore to investigate promising areas, and communication was established with the native tribes. On May 12, a point of land at the mouth of Archer’s Hope (now College) Creek, a little below Jamestown, was examined in detail. Capt. Gabriel Archer was particularly impressed with this location and urged that it be the point of settlement. ”

“ From the sea the island is very unprepossessing, rising steeply from the water’s edge and looking bare, hot and dry. Jamestown, the port, lies in a valley which runs backwards and upwards from the sea in a straggling and ever-narrowing line. From the anchorage one gets a refreshing glimpse of green on the inner slopes. One of the first things that catches the eye on looking ashore is a huge ladder, nearly a thousand feet long and over six hundred feet high, which passes from Jamestown to the summit of Ladder Hill. ”

“ A trace is all that remains of a road which once ran east-west between parallel ditches, south of the row house.
The foregoing has been a summary of the physical aspect of the Jamestown settlement from the standpoint of archeology. An account of the arts and crafts revealed by the artifacts found in these explorations follows. The whole story relating the settlers themselves to evidence they left in the soil of Jamestown remains to be told. ”

“ In midsummer of 1609, conditions at Jamestown were not good, although it is doubtful that they were any worse than during the two previous summers. The settlers were becoming acclimated, and they 12 were learning the ways of the new country. Supplies were low, yet the number of colonists was small, and a good harvest and a good autumn might have improved matters had not some 400 new, inexperienced settlers sailed into the James without their leaders, without instructions, and with damaged supplies. ”

“ In historians' accounts of the first months at Jamestown, too much, perhaps, has been made of faction and quarrel. All this was there. Men set down in a wilderness, amid Virginian heat, men, mostly young, of the active rather than the reflective type, men uncompanioned by women and children, men beset with dangers and sufferings that were soon to tag heavily their courage and patience—such men naturally quarreled and made up, quarreled again and again made up, darkly suspected each the other, as they darkly suspected the forest and the Indian ”

“ Oh, if thou couldst imagine what events must take place in this little isolated world around Jamestown, before the mysteries of which I speak can rightfully be made clear to thee, thou wouldst fall upon thy knees and pray that such disastrous knowledge might never come to thy understanding! ”

“ Under the Amblers and Travises and later owners of the island, even parts of the townsite itself became farm land and functioned as an integral part of the plantation system which earlier events at Jamestown had helped so materially to create.
The fields, and woods, and marshes lay quietly on the James for generations, contributing in a small, but important, manner to a growing country. Americans often remembered the early years of the colony and the momentous events that had taken place on the island, and joined here to commemorate the deeds of their forefathers. ”

“ The pilgrim ship is shown as it entered Plymouth Harbor bringing the first New England settlers.
Through sorrow and privations, surrounded by the nameless terrors of an unknown wilderness, harassed by savages, and disheartened by sickness, the little colony survived as by a miracle, and became the nucleus of a nation. Of the old Jamestown nothing now remains but an ancient church tower overgrown with ivy and a few crumbling tombstones. But its honor remains, secure in the hearts of a grateful people. ”

“ They set their stakes about fifty miles above the mouth of the river which they called the James, and set about speedily at Jamestown to meet the requirements of living, as best they might, and here achieved the first successful settlement of the white man on the North American continent, making of the spot one to which all Americans turn with instinctive reverence and faith—the spirit of the undertaking there embyronic of what the spirit of the nation was to be. ”

“ Jamestown was still to be seated; the Governor had, practically, still to lay its foundations and to promote its growth with the most vigilant solicitude. Berkeley himself was commanded by the English Government to build several houses in the town, presumably at his own expense, and he was told to inform the members of the Council that the authorities in England would be highly pleased if each one would erect a residence at Jamestown. [34] To such expedients was the English Government driven to breathe life into that languishing corporation! ”

“ It is served by the Erie and the Jamestown, Chautauqua & Lake Erie railways, by electric lines extending along Lake Chautauqua to Lake Erie on the N. and to Warren, Pennsylvania, on the S., and by summer steamboat lines on Lake Chautauqua. Jamestown is situated among the hills of Chautauqua county, and is a popular summer resort. There is a free public library. A supply of natural gas (from Pennsylvania) and a fine water-power combine to render Jamestown a manufacturing centre of considerable importance. ”

“ Jamestown Island is a graveyard. After Lord Delaware landed with his accessions to the colony, 900 persons had been sent from England to Virginia, of whom 700 had perished. [69] In 1619 it was estimated that 2540 immigrants had landed at Jamestown, of whom 1640 had died.
The total mortality in less than one score years was 6040, out of 7280. Around the church thousands are buried, the victims of the first season of starvation and those of the last: good Master Hunt, hardy adventurers, knights and ladies, paupers and "gentlemen," gentle and simple; and on the island also Kemps, the Indian ”

“ The economic, political, religious, and social institutions that developed during the first 9 decades of the existence of Jamestown continue to have profound effects on the United States, particularly in English common law and language, cross cultural relationships, manufacturing, and economic structure and status. (4) The National Park Service, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation of the Commonwealth of Virginia collectively own and operate significant resources related to the early history of Jamestown. ”

“ Never was the prophetic declaration that "a little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation," more wonderfully exemplified than in the planting and rearing of this colony. [156]
CHAPTER XII
The sun was just rising, on a frosty morning in February, when the sentinels on guard at Jamestown challenged a company of Indians who were seen defiling through the woods; and were answered by the shout "wingapoh," on their part, and "friends" in a voice they knew. These were the Indians sent by Powhatan to conduct Captain Smith to Jamestown. ”

“ The planters who had survived the attack were hastily called in to Jamestown, and their homes and fields abandoned, so that of the eighty recent settlements only six remained. Some of the people were bold enough to refuse to obey the order, arming their servants, mounting cannon, and preparing to defend their own homes. One of these bold spirits was a woman. But the authorities at Jamestown would not permit this, and they were all compelled to abandon their strongholds and unite for the general defence. ”

“ A typical view of the landscape on Jamestown Island. The high ground is principally along low ridges, sometimes called “fingers,” divided by marshes or very low ground.
Under Dale, the emphasis on colonization was away from Jamestown, yet later governors found the original seat desirable. Capt. Samuel Argall, who succeeded Yeardley as deputy governor in 1617, wrote that he advanced physical improvements prior to his hasty withdrawal from Virginia in the spring of 1619 to avoid arrest under charges of mismanagement of company affairs. Argall had been the first to prescribe limits for Jamestown. ”

“ One hundred and five settlers were left by the ships; among these was John Smith, a wonderful genius and adventurer, a man destined to carry the infant colony through perilous trials.
Smith and his men and those who followed them made out of the fort a town which they called James City, and later Jamestown. From Jamestown grew Virginia, and from Virginia, these United States.
The Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition will celebrate from the last of April to the last of November, the three hundredth anniversary of the nation’s nativity. ”