The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-05-12
OF ANCIENT,
 CAPITALS OF VIRGINIA

From the New York Mail and Express TT IS one thing to read statement or
 fact in history; 1t is quite another to | see with your own eyes the visible testimony of that fact. The testimony may be in the form of buildings old or even ruined It is silent testimony; but 1t is eloquent of the life of the past and verifes the bygone into present realiza- tion. It embodies the imagination that is stirred into activity by retrospect.
 That is the reflection suggested by a recent visit to Jamestown, Va, and to Williamsburg, It's successor as the seat of government of the Virginia colony, and the site of the oldest college in the coun- try that has grown to be the imperial re- public of the United States Jamestown, the first English settlement in America, was upon an island on the northern side of the James river. I say "was," be- cause there is no longer Jamestown upon that island. Indeed Jamestown, as a social, organized entity, ceased to exist more than two centuries ago; for mala- rial conditions caused the removal of the settlement to Williamsburg, several miles inland and northward, which became the capital of the colony in 1899. It is not strictly accurate, either, to speak of Jamestown as the first" English settle- ment in America. There was an earlier shipload of English immigrants who de- parked upon Roanoke Island, several years before. No man knows whatever be- came of those Roanoke pioneers. A ship bringing them supplies found the island deserted and 1t Is supposed that the hand full of whites were absorbed in one of the native tribes, whose descendants in North Carolina today have a tradition and some evidences of an infusion of Anglo-Saxon blood
 But to return to Jamestown, which was really the first English settlement to per sst, even though it was not to be per manent in its location. Founded in 1907, 1t antedated the Plymouth settlement by thirteen years, and It's existence upon the bank of the James endured practi- cally until the end of that century, or during the lives of three generations. 0pO1 lIitll oii thai hON of Jamestown are the tower and the foundations of the walls of the original church and of the walls of a second and larger church, upon the same site and surrounding the first foundation. What memories do these ruins, with the graves in the shaded churchyard, suggest! One calls to mind instantly the radical theo- logical difference between the James, town and the Plymouth settlements; the first Anglican, ritualistic, preserving the theory of alliance between church and state; the second Puritan, severe. simple, independent of the English establish ment. Yet were the two settlements of intimate political kinshlp In their origin; for the Massachusetts colony was found- ed technically under the charter of the Virginia company of London, and the formal declaration, drawn and signed in the cabin of the Mayfiower. includes reference to the charter right of John Carver's band to occupy land in Vir- ginia.
 Upon the occasion of our visit to this Jamestown church there was exhibited to us the original communion service,
 
 now preserved in the Williamsburg sue cessor to this church. It bears the royal arms and is of beaten silver, consisting of a tall cup and two plates. Several of our company touched these ancient ves- sells reverently. Outside, in the grave yard. we deciphered some of the old, old inscriptions, all of them bearing graven witness to the faith of these Virginia pioneers in that joyful resurrection" which they still silently await.
 The James river, whose yellow current flows tranquilly seaward only a few score yards away from the ruins, is slow ly undermining Il clay bank of the isl- and The gove ent has built a sea wall for some nee above the site of the church. but additional appropria- ton is needed m congress to finish