Virginia: the Old Dominion Part 5

"Right near here. They say it stood about a hundred yards above the later one whose ruins are over there in the graveyard. And in that church Lord Delaware and his council--"

"Yes," Nautica broke in again. "That was the church that they were married in--John Rolfe and Pocahontas."

"To be sure," said the Commodore. "Let the wedding bells ring. It is time now for the ceremony."

And a strange ceremony it must have been that the little timber church saw that April day in the year 1614, when the young colonist of good English family linked his fate with that of the dark-skinned girl of the tepee. It was the first marriage of Englishman and Indian in the colony, and meant much to the struggling settlers in furthering peaceful relations with the savages. Speaking in the society-column vernacular of a later day, the occasion was marred by the absence of the bride's father. The wary old chieftain was not willing to place himself within the power of the English. But the bride's family was represented by two of her brothers and by her old uncle, Opachisco, who gave her away. Other red men were present. Doubtless the governor of the colony, Sir Thomas Dale, who much approved the marriage, added a touch of official dignity by attending the ceremony resplendent in uniform and accompanied by colonial officials.

It was a strange wedding, party. While the minister (Was it the Reverend Richard Buck or the good Alexander Whittaker?) read the marriage service of the Church of England, the eyes of haughty cavalier and of impa.s.sive savage met above the kneeling pair and sought to read each other. And a strange fate hung over the pale-face groom and the dusky bride--that in her land and by her people he should be slain; that in his land and among his people she should die and find a lonely grave beside an English river.

"That is just one marriage that you have been so interested in, isn't it?" The Commodore's tone was one to provoke inquiry.

"Just one?" repeated Nautica, "Why, to be sure, unless it takes two weddings to marry two people."

"Just one wedding," persisted the Commodore. "Now, I am interested in dozens and dozens of weddings that happened right here, and all in one day."

There were several things the matter with James Towne from the outset.

Prominent among them was the absence of women and children. After a while a few colonists with families arrived; but, to introduce the home element more generally into the colony, "young women to make wives ninety" came from England in 1619. The scene upon their arrival must have been one of the most unique in the annals of matrimony. The streets of James Towne were undoubtedly crowded. The little capital had bachelors enough of her own, but now she held also those that came flocking in from the other settlements of the colony. The maids were not to be compelled to marry against their choice; and they were so outnumbered by their suitors that they could do a good deal of picking and choosing. With rusty finery and rusty wooing, the bachelor colonists strove for the fair hands that were all too few, and there was many a rejected swain that day.

We might have forgotten the other important events that had happened round about where we were sitting, in that first little town by the river, if a coloured man had not wandered our way. He had driven some sightseers over from Williamsburg, and while waiting for them to visit the graveyard, he seemed to find relief in confiding to us some of his burden of colonial lore and that his name was Cornelius. We had over again the story of Rolfe and Pocahontas, but it seemed not at all wearisome, for the new version was such a vast improvement upon the one that we got out of the books. However, his next statement eclipsed the Pocahontas story.

"De firs' time folks evah meek dey own laws for dey se'fs was right heah, suh, right in dat ole chu'ch."

While again facts could not quite keep up with Cornelius, yet it was true that our little four-acre town had seen the beginnings of American self-government. So early did the spirit of home rule a.s.sert itself, that it bore fruit in 1619, when a local lawmaking body was created, called the General a.s.sembly and consisting in part of a House of Burgesses chosen by the people. On July 30 of that year, the General a.s.sembly met in the village church--the first representative legislature in America. The place of meeting was not, as is often stated, the church in which Rolfe and Pocahontas were married, but its successor--the earliest of the churches whose ruined foundations are yet to be seen behind the old tower.

Perhaps our thoughts had wandered some from Cornelius, but he brought them back again.

"Dey set in de chu'ch an' meek de laws wid dey hats on," he a.s.serted.

And as the House of Burgesses had indeed followed in this respect the custom of the English House of Commons, we were glad to see Cornelius for once in accord with other historians.

Then, Nautica spoke of how the very year that saw the beginning of free government in America saw the beginning of slavery too; and she asked Cornelius if he knew that the first coloured people were brought to America in 1619 and landed there at James Towne.

"Yas'm; ev'ybody tole me 'bout dat. Seem like we got heah 'bout as soon as de white folks."

It was a comfortable view to take of the matter, and we would not disturb it.

Cornelius told us other things.

"Dis, now, is de off season for touris'," he explained. "We has two mos' reg'lar seasons, de spring an' de fall, yas, suh. I drives right many ovah heah from Willi'msburg. I's pretty sho to git hol' of de bes'

an' de riches'. An' I reckon I knows 'bout all dere is to be knowed 'bout dis firs' settlemen'. I's got it all so's I kin talk it off an'

take in de extry change. I don' know is you evah notice, but folks is mighty diffrunt 'bout seem' dese ole things. Yas, suh, dey sut'n'y is.

Some what I drives jes looks at de towah an' nuver gits out de ker'ige; an' den othahs jes peers into ev'ythin'. Foh myse'f, now, I nuver keers much 'bout dese ole sceneries; but den I reckon I would ef I was rich."

CHAPTER VIII

PIONEER VILLAGE LIFE

That first little four-acre James Towne, located in the neighbourhood of the present Confederate fort, soon outgrew its palisades. In what may be called its typical days, the village stretched in a straggling way for perhaps three quarters of a mile up and down the river front, and with outlying parts reaching across the island to Back River. It usually consisted of a church, a few public buildings, about a score of dwellings, and perhaps a hundred people.

One of the princ.i.p.al streets (if James Towne's thoroughfares could be called streets) ran close along the water front. While it must once have had some shorter name, it has come down in the records as "the way along the Greate River." Here and there traces of this highway can still be found; and the mulberry trees now standing along the river bank are supposed to be descendants of those that bordered the old village highway. Next came Back Street upon which some prominent people seem to have lived. Apparently leading across the head of the island from the town toward the isthmus was the "old Greate Road." There still appear some signs of this also near the graveyard. Besides these highways there were several lanes and cart-paths.

The eastward extension of the village, called New Towne, was the princ.i.p.al part. It was the fas.h.i.+onable and official quarter. Here lived many "people of qualitye." Royal governors and ex-governors, knights and members of the Council had their homes along the river front, where they lived in all the state that they could transplant from "London Towne."

The buildings, in the early days of wood and later of brick, were plainly rectangular. The later ones were usually two stories high with steep-pitched roofs. Some of the dwellings, or dwellings and public buildings, were built together in rows to save in the cost of construction. Probably most of the homes had "hort yards" and gardens.

The colonists were not content with having about them the native flowers and fruits and those that they brought from England; but they made persistent efforts for years to grow in their gardens oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and pineapples.

Usually there was not much going on in old James Towne, but periodically the place was enlivened by the sessions of the General a.s.sembly and of the Court. At such times the planters and their following gathered in; and then doubtless there were stirring days in the village capital of "His Majesty's Colony of Virginia." Barges of the river planters were tied alongsh.o.r.e, and about the "tavernes" were horses, carts and a very few more pretentious vehicles. Many of the people on the streets were in showy dress; though only the governor, councillors, and heads of "Hundreds" were allowed to wear gold on their clothes.

James Towne, in her later days, seems to have had a "taverne" or two even when she had scarcely anything else; and doubtless these "alehouses" were the centres of life in those bustling court and a.s.sembly days. For not only was deep drinking a trait of the times, but many of the sessions both of the a.s.sembly and of the Court were held in the "tavernes." Three or four State-houses were built; but with almost suspicious regularity they burned down, and homeless a.s.sembly and Court betook themselves and the affairs of the colony to the inns. There, in the ruddy glow of the great fireplaces, the judges could sit comfortably and dispense justice tempered with spirits.

So life in James Towne went on until the village had completed almost a hundred years of existence. But this was accomplished only by the most strenuous efforts. When at last, in 1699, the long struggle was given up and the seat of government was removed to Williamsburg, nothing but utter dissolution was left for James Towne.

The fated little village had played its part. Through untold suffering and a woeful cost of human life, it had fought on until England obtained a firm hold in America--a hold that was to make the New World essentially Anglo-Saxon. Then this pioneer colony's mission was ended.

It was not destined to have any place in the great nation that its struggle had made possible. One by one the lights in the poor little windows flickered and went out. The deserted hearthstones grew cold.

Abandoned and forgotten, the pitiful hamlet crumbled away.

James Towne dead, the island gradually fell into fewer hands until it became, as it is to-day, the property of a single owner; simply a plantation like any other. And yet, how unlike! Even were every vestige of that pioneer settlement gone forever, memory would hold this island a place apart. But all is not gone. Despite decay and the greedy river, there yet remains to us a handful of ruins of vanished James Towne.

Despite a nation's shameful neglect, time has spared to her some relics of the community that gave her birth--a few broken tombs and the crumbling, tower of the old village church. Every year come many of our people to look upon these ancient ruins and to pause in the midst of hurried lives to recall again their story.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EXCURSION DAY AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND.]

CHAPTER IX

GOOD-BYE TO OLD JAMES TOWNE

Two or three times we ran the houseboat around in front of the island.

On one occasion we took the notion to stop at places of interest along the way. Upon coming out from Back River, we spent some time poking about in the water for the old-time isthmus. We were not successful at first and almost feared that, after raising it for our own selfish purposes some days before, we had let it go down again in the wrong place.

This troubled us the more because we had hoped to settle a vexed question as to how wide an isthmus had once connected the island with the mainland. Nautica insisted that the width had been ten paces because a woman, Mrs. An. Cotton, who once lived near James Towne, had said so. But the Commodore pointed out that we had never seen Mrs.

Cotton, and that we did not know whether she was a tall woman or a little dumpy woman; and so could not have the slightest idea of how far ten paces would carry her. On his part, he pinned his faith to the statement of Strachey, a man who had lived in James Towne and who had said that the isthmus was no broader than "a man will quaite a tileshard." But this Nautica refused to accept as satisfactory because we did not know what a "tileshard" was nor how far a man would "quaite"

one. So we were naturally anxious to see which of us was right.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GADABOUT LOOKING FOR THE LOST ISTHMUS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A VISIT TO THE "LONE CYPRESS."]

After a while we found traces of the isthmus. And the matter turned out just as most disputes will, if both parties patiently wait until the facts are all in--that is, both sides were right. The soundings showed the isthmus to shelve off so gradually at the sides that we found we could put the stakes, marking its edges, almost any distance apart. So, the width across the isthmus could very well be ten of Mrs. Cotton's paces, no matter what sort of a woman she was; and it could just as well be the distance that "a man will quaite a tileshard," be a tileshard what it may.

Now, coasting along the end of the island, we had designs on the "Lone Cypress" for a sort of novel sensation. We approached the h.o.a.ry old sentinel carefully, for it would be a sin to even bark its s.h.a.ggy sides; and, dropping a rope over a projecting broken "knee," we enjoyed a striking object lesson on the effects of erosion. In several feet of water, and nearly three hundred feet from land, our houseboat was tied to a tree; tied to a tree that a hundred years before stood on the sh.o.r.e--a tree that likely, in the early days of the colony (for who knows the age of the "Lone Cypress"?), stood hundreds of yards back on the island. But it may never be farther from sh.o.r.e than we found it; for there, glistening in the suns.h.i.+ne, stood the sea-wall holding the hungry river at bay.

Carefully slipping our rope from the tree, we let the tide carry us out a little way before starting an engine. Then, bidding goodbye to the old cypress, we moved on along the sh.o.r.e. We were aware from our map of ancient holdings that we were ruthlessly cutting across lots over the colonial acres of one Captain Edward Ross; but, seeing neither dogs nor trespa.s.s signs, we sailed right on. The Captain would not have to resort to irrigation on his lands to-day.