The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-10-13
the mental question. "What is James:

town ?" wondering whether the settle
ments of Captain John Smith, of 1906,
were anything more to modern his
tory than a geographical name. If it
were so, why should we not hear of
its inhabitants and its trade, as we did
not? IF it were not so, why should
we hear at all of its name, e-s we did :?
To nme-tenths of the people of the
United States to-day, perhaps, the
modern jamestown, its what and
where, are as much myths as the tint
ed stories of Poncahontas and Powhat-
tan associated with its earliest settle
| ment. What is jamestown? The
soldier who marched with cClellan
! to Yorktown or sailed with Butler to
Clutch Gap can tell you. Filing
toward Newton News, and turning the
point at right angle, keep two hours tc
ward the northwest up the sweeping
curves of James River. The shores
are low and level, with few corn
fields and stunted forests on either
side, the sky, with an occasional crow
in it, cleaving to the distant landscape
like desolation. Along here was the
spread of VIrginia's earliest civiliza-
ton. Suddenly there leaps from
curve of the shore great island, some
hundred of acres in extent, cut from
its landward mooring long ago by the
washing of the river currents. Upon
the point of the island meeting the eye
there rises broken. wall thirty feet
high,. twiued about with wild ivy and
surrounded by shrubs and thorns.
Through a broken arch in this wall
you catch 4 glimpse of a desolate field
of vision behind Upon its perch, un-
der the dreary sky, this ruin looks
like a picture scene on some remote
shore of the Egean Sea, or of the
coast of Asia Minor. Around the foot
of this solitary, antique monument
lie few shattered tombstones-one
of them bearing the remarkable date
of 1908. The wall itself is the crQmh-
ling ruin ofthe old jamestown Church
the oldest ruin of civilization in
North America. In fact, it is James
town itseif-this church-tower-being
all that remains visible of that history,
charming with its mezzotints of tradi-
tion, our childhood like romance.
The ruin itself is romance. There
is not trace of human habitation be-
sides, upon the great island. Almost
two centuries ago civilization abandon
ed the place to the lonliness of its first
wilderness and has never returned.
The history of jamestown was his
tory seventy years. The town was
burned over the heads of the colonIsts
the year after its first settlement 1t
was rebuilt by the energies of the her
oic John Smith, and continued an even
full history for half a century.
In the Bacon's rebellion against
the Colonial Government of Virginia
in 1876 just one hundred years before
the birth of our nationality, this city
! of the first settlement in America was
burned again by the advice of a war
council, and the church tower that is
seen to-day was the only remnant left
by the confagration. The colonists
fled to the new settlements of Virginic
and Maryland, and from that date the
island Of jamestown has remained :
waste.
Virginia had no use for the spot O
the mother settlement for nearly a cen
tury and three-quarters, when, in tht
beginning of thate rebellion, she erect
ed upon its site battery to defend the
river passage against her ''invaders.
A Federal gunboat dismantled i
with shot, but the embankment re
mains still by the side of the moulder
ing church tower. This latter ruin
by the way, is that of the church bull
after the first confagration of the town
in 1907. The first church building
erected by the Colonists was ofwood
Captain Byrd, a Virginia antiquary
facetiously records that "the early set
tiers Of jamestown Colony, like true
Englishmen, built church at cos
of fifty pounds, and a tavern at a cost
of five hundred
Solidly imbedded between the root
of two sycamores which. have grown
around it, is the tombstone of which
have spoken, bearing upon its face th
date of 160S-twO years later thar
that of the original settlement.
s. During the late war soldiers bivouac
king on the adjacent stores foated owe
to the historic settlement on RATS ant
carried away portions of the decayin:
church tower and fragments of tomb
stones as souvenirs. AT the time O
founding the English settlement ther
: in 1906, this island was a peninsula
joined to the shore by narrow 18th
mus. All the early colonies on tn
shores of the Virginia rivers located
themselves in n similar manner for tn
reason of easier defense. Tho James
town Isthmus, or land neck was loy
and marshy, and, with a portion of tn
ground on which stood its oligina
streets, was washed over and ava,
long ago by the river currents.
A Mr.. Allen has of late years, pun
chased the whole of Jamestown islam,
; from the owners, to whom it has com
: by purchase these two centuries-an,
it is sad that, in the coming year, thi
classic site of Americas first town vii
be Enthusiastically converted into
peach orchard.
+ Jabobs the horse tanner, is going t
, present Bonner with set of nicke