Friday, September 20, 2013

The Settlement of Jamestown (Part I)

In 1607, the first European settlement was established on the shores of Chesapeake Bay.  The place was named Jamestown, in honour of the King of England, James I.  We've been studying the stories of these  settlers forour school, and it was incredible to conclude our unit with a visit to the actual location.  We went to two places; both very meaningful.  First we went to the National Park's site, called the 'Colonial National Historic Park'.  We spent the afternoon at Jamestown Settlement, a 'living museum' built in the fifties.  (I'll post photos of that soon!)  At the National Park site, we met Kim and Gord VanVliet and their kids in the parking lot.  (Kim is Jon's cousin.  We arrived at the exact same time - pretty incredible considering we were both coming from several hours away!)

And so we stood on the same land as the settlers did four hundred years ago!  This is where the people we've been reading about built their homes and dug wells and attended church and endured sickness and hunger!  The site has only recently been discovered/confirmed, and archaeologists are in the process of digging and studying various clues that teach us more about life in 1607.  We were able to talk with some of the archaeologists!  You can click here for more information on the artifacts and discoveries.  So interesting!




I hadn't pictured the area to be so open: the James River was wider than I thought, and the land was quite a peninsula.  Their settlement story is a sad one in many ways.  This was a tough spot to live.  Only 38 of the 104 colonists survived the first year.  Then more settlers came from England to Jamestown: out of 4, 270 people arriving between 1607-1610, three thousand of them died.  In the spring of 1610, the survivors packed up camp and turned their boats toward England.  Enough, already!  Down the river, they met up with a new shipment of boats and people coming from England under the leadership of Lord De la Warr.  (Guess what state is named after him!)  The settlers turned the ship around and headed right back to Jamestown.  

One of the first buildings to be built by the Jamestown settlers was a church - 1607.  The church that we were able to walk through was built in 1907.  The foundation bricks from the 1617 church foundation (the wooden church from 1607 burned down) is evident through some glass flooring.  Really cool! 


cemetery
We weren't allowed to walk around the cemetery, but this
sign was posted to tell us the epitaphs, names and dates, and show
a little map of who was buried where.

It was neat to see a monument made in 1907, which seems like a long time ago to me, celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement!



The national park had a scavenger hunt/mystery activity for the kids to solve that had them scurrying about and studying things throughout the park.  It was a lovely, quiet Friday - we were about the only ones there!


Linnea had taken quite a liking to the Pocahontas story. 


The museum of archaeological findings was fascinating!  Wish I could show you and describe to you all that we saw there!  Coins, pipes, vases, bones with bullets embedded in them ... really, really neat!

As we wandered through the park back toward our picnic lunch, we came across many such signs and ruins.


 We loved this place!!!   One of my favourite stamps in the National Park Passport!



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