Jamestown

On our way back to MD (on June 9), we visited the historical site of Jamestown, VA. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the US. It began in 1608 with 104 colonists. We visited the actual site of the 3-sided fort of Jamestown. It actually sat on a beautiful spot overlooking the James River.

The beginning was very difficult for the colonists- lots of disease and starvation. That is when Captain John Smith was in charge. Lucky for the colony, he had a good trading relationship with chief Powhatan, the main Indian chief in the land. So Chief Powhatan and his tribes helped the colonists a lot in the early years (and when the colonists were respectfully staying within Jamestown's walls and not trying to colonize anywhere else).

We found out that John Smith was actually pretty cool- a real rough and tumble kind of a guy.
He was a soldier in many wars, partook in some piracy, and was a POW. In the New World he acted as an expert negotiator, sailor, and mapmaker. He made maps of the rivers surrounding the colony that were extremely accurate. One time when he was sailing the rivers surrounding the colonies and charting them- a storm ripped the sail of the ship. He had all of the men take off their shirts and sew them together to make a sail so they could finish the trip. He gave out food to the colonists based on how much work they actually did everyday. We also heard a story that he was shot in the leg with a cannonball or something and survived!

Based on diaries, Pocahontas and John Smith were not in love. She was actually 13 when the colonists arrived in the New World. Pocahontas was Chief Powhatan's favorite daughter though. She was fascinated by the colonists and was influential in making peace between the two. She eventually married another colonist- John Rolfe. She went back to England with him. Everyone there wanted to see and touch the "Indian Princess." She got some sort of English sickness and died.

We learned a lot of other things about the colony. During the early years between 1609-1610, only 1/3 of the colonists survived. Tree ring records from the time show it was the worst drought in 800 years. Eventually, the colony did thrive once they discovered that the climate was perfect for growing tobacco. It became their cash crop, and more Europeans started coming over to make their fortunes. They started moving away from the colony and starting farms. This caused relations with the Indians to go sour years later. The town was even burned- twice.

Jamestown National Park is actually pretty cool. The reason that they started preserving it back in the 1800s, is that there were tons of bones hanging out of the riverbank. Showing pictures of these to government officials got them the money to build a seawall and begin preserving the area. Nowadays, it is an active archaeolgical site. They have dug up many cool things at the site, and they are on display there- coins, armor, skeletons, jewelry, and pottery to name a few. The coolest thing is that before 1994, nobody even thought that the site of the fort still existed. They used to teach visitors that the site of the old fort had eroded into the James River. That's when this guy, Dr. William Kelso, comes in and says, I respectfully disagree with you- may I please dig around and see what I can find? In no time, he found markings worn into the ground by the old wooden fort. His team has found 1.5 million artifacts: including the old brick walkways and foundations of buildings. Below are pictures of some of the brick foundation from the 1619 church, the original church tower from the mid 1600s, and an old well. They found a lot of the artifacts in old wells. That is where people used to throw their "trash," and now we call it "historical" and put it in museums. :) We also visited an old glasshouse from 1608. Glassblowing was one of the first industries in Virginia. The glasblowers would make glass windows and things and send them back to England.

It was a really fun and interesting day getting to see a bit of history.