The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624Hatch, Charles E., Jr.
History
The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624
Hatch, Charles E., Jr.
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
There was soon a change in direction as a new charter placed the
management of affairs in Virginia directly in the hands of George Thorpe
and of William Tracy who was assigned Throckmorton's interest in the
project. Thorpe left for the Colony in the spring of 1620 and with him
went 3 men and "six kyne." A larger reinforcement accompanied Tracy. It
included 50 persons who left England in the fall of 1620 reaching
Virginia on January 29, 1621. Tracy wrote in September that he had in
his Company "4 maid servants 3 maried wives & 2 young children my wife
and daughter & son." The full list of supplies that came at this time is
preserved (_Records of the Virginia Company of London_, III, 385-393)
and tells much of life and conditions in Virginia. It included 2
grindstones, 2 mill stones, garden seeds: parsnips, carrot, cabbage,
turnip, lettuce, onion, mustard and garlic; books on "husbandry &
huswifry;" 22,500 "nayles of severall sorts;" and "sives to make
gunpowder in Virginia." (_See the Appendix._)
Things were well advanced when the massacre hit Berkeley Hundred. Eleven
were killed here including Capt. George Thorpe "one of his Majesties
pensioners." Then came abandonment from which no clearcut survival seems
to have been achieved. In the spring of 1622 those who "remayneth" must
have been relocated. Four persons sent from England "before the news of
the massacre was heard" arrived in June and there is mention of others
going for Berkeley in August. In July, 1623 John Smith promised to
supply "my servants now living in Virginia in Berckley Hundreth" and
others at least to the extent of L100. Two months later the _Bonny Bess_
is reported to have brought people and supplies for Berkeley in its
cargo.
In January, 1624, it was reported that 16 men, all of whom are named,
were "planted at Sherley Hundred for Barkley Hundred Company." This
indicates that the settlement at Berkeley had not yet been reactivated.
Further indication is found in the assignment of Richard Milton of
"Shirley Hundred" to look after the "Barkley Hundred" cattle for which
he would get 50 pounds of tobacco and "the milke of the said Kyne."
Perhaps these are the same cattle which had been taken to Jordan's
Journey, by overseer Kemish, just after the massacre. There is no
mention of Berkeley in the list of 1624, or in the muster of 1625.
CAUSEY'S CARE (OR "CLEARE") (7)
Nathaniel Causey was an old soldier who came to Virginia in the First
Supply early in 1608. It was on December 10, 1620 that he obtained a
grant that he began to develop as a private plantation. This appears to
have been located just to the east of West and Shirley Hundred on the
north side of the James. If we accept the entry in the land list of May,
1625 this was for some 200 acres. Presumably he and his wife, Thomasine,
also an "old planter" who had come to the Colony in 1609, lived here, at
least for a time, perhaps, with servants which numbered 5 in 1625.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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