Historical Jamestown

Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607. It was America’s  first English colony. The three ships carrying the settlers were the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery.

This monument stands as you walk into the historic area. It was erected in 1907 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the landing of the first permanent english settlers at Jamestown.

Jamestown Church was built in 1906. (There were about five churches built before this one. I think two were wooden and the other’s brick. They burned or were damaged by fire and rebuilt around existing structures.)  The interior of the church contains the brick and cobblestone foundation of the 1639 church.

This is the inside of the church.

After the fourth church was finished, the tower was added. This was after 1647.  The tower portion remained unharmed after the fourth church was burned during Bacon’s Rebellion. The tower is the only seventeenth century building standing at Jamestown, and the oldest English-built structure in the United States.

We know her as Pocahontas, but she was actually named Mantoaka. She was the daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Algonquian Indians. Prior to her marriage to John Rolfe, she was baptized in the Christian faith and christened Rebecca.

While John Smith was leader of the colony, he established a “no work, no food” policy. He was injured burning gunpowder in the Fall of 1609. He then returned permanently to England.

I thought the well was really cool looking. There was another one which appeared much older, but I didn’t take a picture of that one. It was sealed at the top. I liked the look of these one as it was sealed a little farther down.

This is what is written on the plaque on the cross: To the glory of God and in grateful memory of those early settlers, the founders of this nation who died at Jamestown during the first periloous years of the colony.  Their bodies lie along the ridge beyond this cross in the earliest known burial ground of the English in America. “These are they which came out of great tribulation.” -The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities

There is a memorial stone that says this Live Oak was dedicated on June 15, 1965. It commemorates the 750th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta on June 15, 1215. “Out of these roots have sprung great liberties of man, great principles of law.” – The Magna Carta Commision of Virginia

See the eagle on this monument? You know that the eagle stands for freedom. I found it particulary fitting that while we were touring Jametown, and Eagle circled and soared above the historic settlement.