USA > Virginia > City of Williamsburg > City of Williamsburg > Site of old "James Towne," 1607-1698 : a brief historical and topographical sketch of the first American metropolis > Part 3
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"A framed Bridge was alsoe then erected, [during Sir Thomas Smith's administration] which utterly decayed before the end of Sir Thomas Smith's government, that being the only bridge (any way soe to be called) that was ever in the country."
From the above it is obvious that the water was too shallow for vessels to lie against the shore in front of the fort, which, therefore, as above stated, was not at the original landing-place. 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 " little vale " at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge. Thus situated, the guns of its north bastion would have swept the
1 Percy's Discourse.
2 The Genesis of the United States, p. 488.
: A Breife Declaration of the Piantation of Virginia, &c., McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 103-142.
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THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE."
branch of the swamp below and of the vale above, while those of its east and west bastions would have commanded the river front and the channel approaching from below, as did the guns of its successor, the Confederate fort of 1861. In the above described position the part of the branch of the swamp between the second and fourth ridges would have afforded additional pro- tection against the Indians. The third ridge was possibly strategically as favorable as the fourth, but its crest is two feet lower and its area above the level of great tides much smaller. It was, therefore, not as well adapted to the needs of the first settlers.
In excavating earth in 1861, at the head of the fourth ridge near the Confederate fort for its construction, pieces of armor and weapons of the early "James Towne " period were found, a good indication that the fort of 1607 was located about as above described. From the shore in front of it a wharf only about two hundred feet long would have been required to reach water twelve feet deep.
The parade ground where " the whole Company every Satur- day exercised, in the plaine by the west Bulwarke, prepared for that purpose " * * ** " where sometimes more than an hundred Salvages would stand in an amazement to behold, how a fyle would batter a tree, where he [Captain John Smith] would make them a marke to shoot at,"" was on the plateau at the head of the fourth ridge between the western curtain of the tri- angular fort and the " little vale." As shown on the map, it was three hundred feet long and upwards of one hundred feet wide.
From the " Breife Declaration," it is learned that " After this first supplie " [January, 1608], "there were some few poore howses built, & entrance made in cleeringe of grounde to the quantitye of foure acres for the whole Collony, hunger & sick- ness not permittinge any great matters to be donne that yeare." It does not seem probable that the clearing, on account of its small area, was made for agricultural purposes, for while Captain
+Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433.
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THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE."
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 " appears 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 quantitye of foure acres within which those buildings that weare erected, could not in any man's judgement, neither did stand above five yeares & that not without con- tinuall reparations."
The part of the "Declaration " from which the above is ex- tracted is ambiguous and obscure, the settlements at Henrico near Dutch Gap, about 14 miles below Richmond, and James Towne being described, as it were, in the same breath. It would appear, however, from the context that the four acres were at the latter place, and this view is indirectly confirmed by Ralph Hamor, who, as appears from the following, gives the area of Henrico as seven acres; "and in the beginning of Sep- tember, 1611, he [Dale] set from Jamestown, and in a day & a halfe, landed at a place where he purposed to seate & builde, where he had not bin ten daies before he had very strongly im- paled seuen English Acres of ground for a towne."'
There are no data available giving the slightest clue as to the situation of the four acres. It is believed that they included the area of one acre covered by the first fort, as it is quite im- probable that the settlers had two distinct towns at the same place.
Shortly after Captain John Smith became president of the
'Ibid, pp. 154, 471.
· A True Discourse of the present estate of Virginia, p. 29. 3-J. T.
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THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
colony (September, 1608) the plan of the fort was reduced to " 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 natural position for the three-acre addition, would have been adjoining the eastern bul- wark of the triangular fort. From its southern end the minia- ture town, fronting the river, probably extended east about one hundred yards, thence in a northerly direction to and along the eastern wall of the graveyard, thence northwesterly by "the old Greate Roade " given as the eastern boundary of a tract granted John Howard in 1694,8 and thence westerly by a line which subsequently formed the southern boundary of Richard Law- rence's tract, and in the line of its prolongation about at the level of great tides-eight feet above low water-to the north bastion of the triangular fort, whose western and southern bulwarks completed the inclosure. These lines would make the fort " a five-square form " or pentagon. " The old Greate Road," judging from its name, was of great antiquity. It was prob- ably one of the first roads opened by the settlers, and passed along one of the paled sides of the early town, as above de- scribed.
The original triangular fort must have been maintained for several years as an inner stronghold of the paled town. Dur- ing Strachey's sojourn in the colony, from May, 1610, to the fall of 1611, the principal buildings were situated within it. The stockade around the part of the town outside of the fort proper was probably kept up for some time after the massacre of 1622, until the settlement gained a sufficient foothold to make it unnecessary as a defence against the Indians.
The greater part of the ground inclosed by the triangular fort has been destroyed by the abrasion of the island bank.
7 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433.
8 Va. Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82.
LOCATIONS OF BLOCK HOUSES.
OR preventing incursions of the Indians across the isthmus, Captain John Smith, in the spring of 1609, “ built a Blockhouse in the neck of our Isle." This was replaced by a similar structure about 1624. The latter is referred to in a patent to John Bauldwin in 1656, which locates it approximately. It appears, from the patent, that the later block house was near the earlier one. The ridge on which the block houses were placed, the first ridge, is referred to in the patents as Block House Hill. A " bank of earth not a flight shot long cast up thwart the neck of the peninsula " by Sir William Berkeley, in September, 1676, to oppose the entrance of Bacon's men to " James Citty "1 must have been situated on the north side of Block House Hill at the southern end of the isthmus.
There were also, according to Ralph Hamor, two block houses "to observe and watch least the Indians at any time should swim over the back river and come into the Island." He does not, however, give their locations. They were on the Back River, one probably at Friggett Landing, the other below Gov- ernor Yeardley's place.
1 The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676, by T. M .- Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, p. 21.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN.
HE 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 unpre- tentious brick buildings of a later day, was equally a misnomer.
For the details of the first structures erected, as of most other matters pertaining to the early settlement, Captain John Smith is the principal authority.
As the time of Newport's colony, immediately after its arrival in Virginia was occupied in exploring the country, building the stockade, and preparing a cargo for the return voyage of the ships, the building of quarters was neglected, and those erected were inadequate in number and afforded but imperfect shelter. The best of them were built of rails and roofed with marsh grass thatch covered with earth.1 According to the " Breife Decla- ration," some of the settlers lived in holes in the ground, as is sometimes done on the western plains, where they are called " dug-outs."
After Newport's departure, hot weather and general illness of the party supervening, the completing of the huts was prevented until the fall of 1607.2
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,3 about which time the clearing of the four acres was begun.
The huts which replaced those that were burned were more comfortable than the latter. Their sides were lined with Indian
1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 957. (The references in this monograph to " Works, Captain John Smith," are from Prof. Edward Arber's edition.)
ª Ibid, pp. 10, 96, 392. 8 Ibid, pp. 105, 400.
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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.5 About a year later twenty additional houses were added, and, when Captain Smith left the settlement in 1609, it had, according to his account, within the fort, then equipped with twenty-four guns of different calibers, of which, however, probably not over six were mounted in the bastions, besides the church and store house, forty or fifty of the above huts.7 Dr. Simmonds states that there were fifty or sixty houses within the stockade,8 where also was situated the well, prior to digging which the settlers drank the often brackish water of the river. The well water, naturally enough, was filled with organic matter. It undoubtedly caused most of the malaria and enteric troubles of the settlers. It was found to be in an unsanitary condition by Dale in 1611, resulting prob- ably from its proximity to the huts. Dale proposed, among other improvements to be made in the town, the digging of a new well. In 1617 the new well was found to be polluted.º
The fort undoubtedly stood above the level of great tides, as otherwise, Captain John Smith or others would have referred in their writings to the discomforts arising from tidal inundations. Judging from the contours of the ground, at or adjoining the site of the fort, its elevation was not less than seven or eight feet above low water.10
‘ Ibid, pp. 502, 503. 5 Purchas His Pilgrimes, Lib. IX, p. 1752.
8 Works, Captain John Smith. pp. 154, 471.
7 Ibid, p. 612.
9 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535.
8 Ibid, p. 486.
1º The depth of the well in the fort is given by Strachey in Pur- chas His Pilgrimes at six or seven fathoms. This, evidently, is a misprint, and should read six or seven feet. The level of the water in wells on the island follows that of the tides. The bottom of an ancient well on the third ridge is about 11/2 feet below low tide. A proper depth for a well in the fort would probably have been 7 to 91/2 feet, depending on' the elevation of_the ground.
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THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
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.11
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." 12
Dr. Simmonds gives the width of the streets between the lines of huts and the palisades at eight to ten yards.13
In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale erected a "munition-house," a powder-house, a fish-house, a shelter-shed for cattle and a stable,14 and a few months later Sir Thomas Gates added a storehouse, . covering a space of one hundred and twenty by forty feet and a number (not given) of log houses arranged in two rows, some of which were two stories and a garret high. About this time also the stockade was repaired and a new gun platform placed at its western end, presumably at the point of the triangular fort known as the west bastion.13 It is apparent that if all of the
11 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 612.
12 Purchas His Pilgrimes, Liber IX, pp. 1752, 1753.
13 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 407.
14 The Genesis of the United States. p. 492.
15 Hamor's True Discourse, p. 33.
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THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE."
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, no doubt, of unseasoned or sappy timber being used for the log houses, but five or six remained serviceable in 1617.16 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 settlers who, on their way to the interior, for several years, had been arriving in large numbers. The massacre of 1622 and un- favorable reports of the colony published by several unprincipled partisans of Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer or governor of the London Company, to create prejudice against and destroy con- fidence in the Virginia enterprise under the administrations of Sir Edwin Sandys, Smythe's successor, and of the Earl of South- ampton, who succeeded Sandys, checked the growth of the colony and, to some extent, therefore, that of the town.
For many years the place apparently made little or no pro- gress. On February 20, 1636, a law was enacted by the Grand Assembly 17 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
16 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535.
17 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I,p. 689.
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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.19
The patent records contain eight land grants made within the town precincts between 1636 and 1642.19 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, " with- in 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."2º In March, 1643, the Grand Assembly framed a statute, according to which builders of houses on deserted lots in "James Citty " would acquire a title to the lot built on, provided the back quit rents were paid.21
The patent transcripts contain twelve issues for town lots be- tween 1642 and 1662. At the close of the interregnum in 1661, during Sir William Berkeley's second term as governor of Vir- ginia, he was again urged by the king to take steps to enlarge the town by erecting more houses, the monarch assuring him that "Wee will take it very well at their hands if they [the members of the colonial council] will each of them build one or more houses there." 22
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
18 McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 247-249. Governor Harvey and Council to Privy Council, January, 1639.
19 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, pp. 466, 587, 588, 595, 598, 689, 730. Reference is made hereinafter to the incompleteness of the records.
20 Instructions to Governor Berkeley and Council, August, 1641 .- McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 383.
21 Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 252.
22 Instructions to Governor Berkeley, McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 414.
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erected at "James Citty " thirty-two brick houses, forty by twenty feet in plan inside, apparently two stories high, and roofed with slate or tile.23 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."24 The unoccupied houses were some of those which had been ordered built by statute of December, 1662, but had never been completed,25 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 ini- tiate the work. Two good houses had at that time been erected by Colonel Bacon the elder, and others were either under con- struction or proposed. Lord Culpeper's reply to the king's mes- sage contains a reason for the town's lack of recuperative power. " I have given all encouragement possible for the rebuilding of James Citty, The Generall Courts, publick offices, and meetings of Assemblies having been alwayes kept there, And Greenspring (the nearest convenient habitation) My place of 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
23 Hening's Statutes, Vol II, p. 172.
24 Burwell MS., Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, Bacons Proseed- ings.
25 British State Papers, Colonial, No. 62.
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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." 26
In 1697 the number of houses in the town was reported to be twenty or thirty.
In 1698, the royal mandate to build up the town was reiterated to Governor Nicholson, but before any steps could be taken to act on it, a fire occurred, by which the statehouse and prison,27 and probably all other buildings on the third ridge, were de- stroyed.
At a session of the General Assembly held in April, 1699, acts were passed for establishing the city of Williamsburg (about eight miles north-east of " James Towne "), for erecting a state- house there and providing for raising funds to defray its cost by imposing an import tax on slaves, also on servants not born in England or Wales, brought to the colony.28
After the fire of 1698, "James Citty " waned. One patent for a small tract in the town, issued in October, 1699,2ª 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 1807, there were two dwellings on the island, the Jaquelin-Ambler and Travis mansions, and in 1861, but one, the former, which was burned during the ensuing war. The above house was afterwards rebuilt, and again burned in 1896. The ground on which it formerly stood was probably owned by Sir Francis Wyatt in 1623. At some time prior to 1690 it be- longed to John Page, clerk of the Assembly, from whom it was purchased by William Sherwood.31
26 McDonald Papers, Vol. VI, p. 165.
27 The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25.
28 Hening's Statues, Vol. III, pp. 193 and 197.
29 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IX, p. 232.
30 The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25.
31 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384.
Ye Brick Church of 1639 Restored
Copyright, 1903, by Samuel H. Yonge.
The Site of Old James Town" 1607-1698
POPULATION OF THE TOWN AND COLONY.
URING the first eighteen years of the settling of Virginia there were great fluctuations in the population of the colony, and also of "James Forte " or "James Towne." Each influx of new life was followed by a more or less rapid ebbing of the human tide, resulting from the ravages of disease and the tomahawk. During the first eight months the fort's population dwindled from one hundred and five to a little band of thirty-eight persons, the smallest number that the colony ever held. By the arrival of several reinforce- ments during the twenty-one months following (January, 1608, to October, 1609), its population was increased to upwards of 490.1 Within eight months the above number was reduced by death from starvation, climatic illness, and pestilence, to about sixty persons. Fresh accessions under Gates and La Warr in June, 1610, brought the number up to about 350, most of whom were quartered in the town. In a few months this number was diminished by death to about 200. Thus far about 900 persons had been sent from England to Virginia, of whom about 700 had perished. The numbers and mortality of Virginia emigrants for the ensuing twenty years as given by different authorities are discrepant.
Between December, 1606, and November, 1619, it is estimated that 2,540 persons emigrated to Virginia, of whom 1,640 died.2 Between the latter date and February, 1625, 4,749 colonists came to Virginia and 4,400 died, thus making a total mortality in about nineteen years of 6,040, out of 7,289.3
According to John Wroth, a member of the Warwick faction, up to 1623, 3,570 out of 5,270 colonists died in the four years
1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 486. The numbers reported brought by different vessels indicate a less number.
? The First Republic in America, pp. 285, 329.
8 Ibid, p. 612.
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ending with 1622." Captain Nathaniel Butler represented that up to the winter of 1622, the mortality was 8,000 out of 10,000,5 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.ª Captain John Smith says: "neere 7,000 people " out of 8,500 had died to 1627.7
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