The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its PeopleHaynie, Miriam
History
The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its People
Haynie, Miriam
Northern Neck (Va.)
To their great disappointment the mine was not gold but antimony. The
Indians, who had been in the habit of digging there, washed the element
of its dross "in a fayre brooke of christel-like water" which "runneth
hard by it" and put it in little bags and sold it all over the country.
It was used to paint their idols and themselves. Smith noted that it
made them look like "blackmoores dusted over with silver."
No minerals were discovered in this search either. They were rewarded in
a slight degree by some furs of mink, beaver, otter, bear and marten,
which they obtained mostly from the Indians of Cascarawaoke. This was a
merchant tribe that did much of the manufacturing and trading of this
country. The Potomac must have been used as a highway for trade as the
word Patowmeke is said to mean "to bring again," or, in a freer
rendering, "traveling traders, or pedlars."
Smith's party found "plentie" of fish, "lying so thicke, with their
heads above the water, as for want of nets (our barge driving amongst
them) we attempted to catch them with a frying pan; but we found it a
bad instrument to catch fish with."
Smith now continued toward the mouth of the Potomac and the Chesapeake.
He had little of tangible value to show for the trip up the river but he
had added greatly to his store of knowledge and could now add the
Potomac to his map of the Chesapeake and surrounding country.
He notes that the Potomac was "inhabited on both sides. First on the
South side at the very entrance is Wighcocomoco (Little Wicomico) and
hath some 130 men, beyond them Sekacawone (Coan) with 30. The
Onawmanient with 100. And the Patawomekes more than 200."
A point of land at the mouth of the Potomac, on the south side, he named
for himself, Smith's Point.[2]
[Footnote 2: Smith's Point is also called Smith Point.]
_MOTHER OF WATERS_
When Captain John Smith and his bargeload of adventurers left the
Potomac they passed the tip of Smith's Point and headed south. They were
now on the Chesapeake Bay.
Indians had long used this great inland sea as their waterway. Their
word, Chesapeake, has been translated in a number of ways, among
them--country on a great river and great salt bay.
The Spaniards, who visited the Bay in the sixteenth century, had
documented it as Bahia de Santa Maria (St. Mary's Bay). Later, they
called it Bahia del Xacan (Axacan Bay), and a very old Spanish map calls
it, Madre de Aguas, meaning Mother of Waters.
Captain Smith describes it simply as "a goodly bay." He wrote: "This Bay
lyeth North and South, in which the water floweth neare 200-myles, and
hath a channell for 140 myles, of depth betwixt 6 and 15 fadome, holding
in breadth for the most part 10 or 14 myles."
Two of Smith's company recorded the fact that "Neither better fish, more
plenty or variety, had any of us seene in any place, swimming in the
water, then in the bay of Chesapeake."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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