July 21, 2021 - Jamestown
This morning we drove the Colonial Parkway from Yorktown over to Jamestown, where it all began on May 4, 1607. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. (Plymouth Colony wasn't until 1620). Jamestown is truly one of the great historical sites in America, right up there with the gold discovery site in Coloma, California, the Golden Spike site on Promontory Point, Utah, the First Flight site in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Gettysburg Battlefield, the first oil drill site in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the Battle of New Orleans site, etc.
There are basically two things to see in Jamestown: the original fort on Jamestown Island, and Jamestown Settlement, which is a living-history park and museum located about a mile away from the original location of the colony.
We started with the original fort on Jamestown Island. It has a National Park visitors center, which was closed, of course. We walked across a marsh to the original Jamestown fort.
On Jamestown Island we went on an excellent guided tour by an archaeologist of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation.
I was astonished to learn that the original fort was only discovered in 1996. Previously, the assumption was that the original site was underwater in the James River. In the early 90s, some researchers had a theory that the original site might be on dry land. They went to the National Park Service for permission to do an archaeological dig. The NPS said "No", of course. The group suggested that an archaeological dig might be good publicity for the upcoming 400th anniversary in 2007. The NPS said OK. Artifacts turned up in the very first shovelful of dirt.
The primary goal of the archaeological campaign was to locate archaeological remains of "the first years of settlement at Jamestown, especially of the earliest fortified town; and the subsequent growth and development of the town"
Today, visitors to Historic Jamestowne can view the site of the original 1607 James Fort, the 17th-century church tower and the site of the 17th-century town, as well as tour an archaeological museum called the Archaearium and view many of the close to two million artifacts found by Jamestown Rediscovery. They also may participate in living history ranger tours and Archaeological tours given by the Jamestown Rediscovery staff. Visitors can also often observe archaeologists from the Jamestown Rediscovery Project at work, as archaeological work at the site continues. As of 2021, the archaeological work and studies are ongoing.
On the map below, notice how much of Jamestown island is wetlands (swamp).
For most of the newcomers, Virginia was a charnel house. In these decades the average life expectancy of an English settler in Virginia was less than two years; tens of thousands died in the Chesapeake swamps – of malaria, dysentery, Indian arrows, hunger, scurvy, overwork and sheer heartbreak. Not until around 1700 would births outnumber deaths among the English settlers in Virginia, nearly three generations after the foundation of Jamestown. --- S.M. Stirling
By the 1620s Jamestown had expanded from a small palisaded fort to a rapidly growing town. Warehouses, trademen's shops, and taverns lined the waterfront, and prominent planters and merchants built houses on the high ground off Back Street. The town is long gone, but remnants remain.
Here Lynnette and I are checking out the "New Towne" area.
We left Historic Jamestown and headed over to the Jamestown Settlement which features an outstanding museum -- almost identical in layout to the American Revolution museum in Yorktown -- a reconstruction of a Powhatan village, a Jamestown Fort replica as it was between 1610–1614, and seagoing replicas of the three ships that brought the first settlers, Susan Constant, Godspeed, Discovery.
Then the replicas of the famous three ships: Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery.
This is the Susan Constant, flagship and largest of the three ships. Length: 116 feet. Displacement: 120 tons. She carried 54 passengers and 17 crewmen. The original was probably built in 1605 and almost certainly built on the River Thames near London. Soon after the Jamestown colony was planted, the Susan Constant returned to England, continuing her career as an ordinary trading vessel.
Godspeed, at right, was the second largest vessel of the three. Length: 88 feet. Displacement: 40 tons. She carried 39 passengers and 13 crewmen.
Discovery, at left, was the smallest. Length: 66 feet. Displacement: 20 tons. She carried 12 passengers and 9 crewmen. Discovery did not return to England but was used by the colonists to explore the inland waterways of the Chesapeake Bay.
