IT WAS probably about the year 1640 when the Indians of Chicacoan[5] saw a white man's boat turning from the Potomac into their inlet, Sekacawone. [Footnote 5: Indian words had various spellings. Chicacoan, for example, was spelled Chickawane, Chickcoun, Chuckahann, Chickhan, Chiccoun, Accoan, Sekacawane, Secone, Chickoun, Chickacoon, Sekacawone, Chickacoan, Chicokolne, Chicokolue, Chicacoun, etc.] The boat was of the type called a shallop, built and used by Indian traders. This one may have been of fifteen or twenty tons burden, with two masts, and square sails that were higher than they were wide. The wood may have been turpentined, or painted in a gay combination of colors, such as red, blue, green or yellow. If oars were used as well as sails they were probably painted red. The white men on board the shallop were doubtless dressed in the manner of seamen of their day--loose breeches and jerkins of canvas, hose of coarse wool and boots of leather. They may have worn woolen stocking caps or felt hats, depending upon the season. The owner of the vessel was an Englishman, not over thirty years of age. His clothes were probably of a finer weave and cut than those of his men. Unless he was different from other men of his time and station, he wore his natural hair long and flowing about his shoulders. He may have worn a sword at his side. This young gentleman's name was John Mottrom, formerly of Maryland, but more recently from the vicinity of the York River. If the inhabitants of Chicacoan thought that the shallop held "trucke" to barter for their corn, they were mistaken. Far better for them had this been so. John Mottrom was not looking for trade but for a new home, and he liked what he saw here--a wilderness peninsula, shut-away from the government at Jamestown by miles of water and forest, protected from Maryland by the Potomac, but close enough to keep in touch with his friends in the "Citie of St. Mary's." He could see, too, that this wilderness held promises of future riches. He had done well as a merchant, trading with Maryland, around the Potomac and up the Bay at Kent Island, but now the fur trade was on the wane and tobacco was taking the place of beaver skins as currency. Here, in this peninsula of northern Virginia, new lands could be had for the taking--fields for tobacco. This inlet of the Potomac that the Indians called Sekacawone was a sheltered harbor but deep enough for big ships to come in and take the tobacco away to foreign markets. The adjacent lands had been cleared by the natives; the forest would furnish materials for homes and boats. There are no records to tell what kind of bargain Mottrom made with the Chicacoans for their land, but apparently the relations between the white men and the Indians were friendly. Marshvwap, King of the Chicacoan and Wicocomoco Indians, became a friend of his new neighbor, John Mottrom. _COAN HALL_