Jamestown, Virginia: The Townsite and Its StoryHatch, Charles E., Jr.
History
Jamestown, Virginia: The Townsite and Its Story
Hatch, Charles E., Jr.
Jamestown (Va.)
It has become possible to define on the ground the pattern of Jamestown
as it existed in at least a part of the early period. Utilizing the
route of the “Greate Road,” “Back Streete,” “the highway close to the
river,” and various connecting ways, a plan now lays on the ground east
from the Visitor Center. Exposed original foundations, other ruins
marked aboveground in brick and wood (these in dull white), reopened old
ditches (which often mark property lines), fences of period type, and
replanted hedges are all used. Paintings help in visualizing the houses
that once stood on some of the foundations while recorded descriptions,
narrative markers, and other aids give information on owners, events,
and happenings.
The extreme east end of Jamestown is that area developed after 1619,
first actually surveyed by William Claiborne in 1623, and known to its
first residents as _New Towne_. Here it is possible to locate, plot, and
identify, with some assurance, a number of the early property holdings.
There is the plot taken up by Capt. John Harvey in 1624, on which he had
houses and where he kept a garden and cultivated fruit trees. Across
“Back Streete” from the Harvey site was the holding of Dr. John Pott who
was sent from England in 1621 accompanied by two surgeons and a chest of
medicine. He had a house here by 1622, although it was not until after
this date that he obtained his land patent.
West of the Harvey site was the home and lot of George Menefie, an
attorney, administrator, and member of the council. Near the home of
Menefie was the tract of Ralph Hamor, Dale’s secretary of state, who
died in 1626. Farther west were the holdings of John Chew, a merchant
(1624), and of Richard Stephens (1623), who had personal difficulties
with John Harvey, and who later appears to have been a party to the
first duel fought in an English colony. North of the “Back Streete” and
west of Pott’s holdings were those of Edward Blaney (a merchant), Capt.
Roger Smith, and Capt. William Pierce, whose house George Sandys, in
1623, pronounced “the fairest in Virginia.”
Near the river, in the “New Towne” section, stood the _First Statehouse_
(14) in Virginia. Foundations here (now partly exposed and partly
marked) are thought to be those of this significant structure. It served
the colony from 1641 to 1656. In it, during the early governorship of
Sir William Berkeley, were discussed the measures needful for the
government of the growing colony. Here, too, the colony gave its
submission to the commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell in England
in 1652, and Richard Bennett was chosen as governor by the assembly to
succeed Berkeley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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