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 principal 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
principal part. It was the fashionable 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
Assembly 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 alongshore, 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
assembly days. For not only was deep drinking a trait of the times, but
many of the sessions both of the Assembly 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 Assembly 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.
[Illustration: AN EXCURSION DAY AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND.]