Every colonizing expedition to the New World had been deeply impressed
by the wealth of shipbuilding materials to be found. The English were
particularly enthusiastic, since the scarcity of timber in England was
very serious. Here, in Virginia, were to be found all that was needed
for building ships: "oakes there are as faire, straight and tall and
as good timber as any can be found, a great store, in some places very
great. Walnut trees very many, excellent faire timber above four-score
foot, straight without a bough." The report went on in praise of the
tall pine trees fit for the tallest masts, and the kinds of woods for
making small boats: mulberry, sassafras, and cedar. Other materials
were not wanting: iron ore, pitch, tar, rosin, and flax for making
rope. The colonists saw in this wealth of materials a new source of
supply at one-half of the previous cost. Both England and Holland had
been purchasing their shipbuilding materials from Poland and Prussia
at a cost of a million pounds sterling annually. One enthusiastic
Englishman, when he heard these reports, wrote: "We shall fell our
timber, saw our planks, and quickly make good shipping there, and
shall return thence with good employment, an hundred sayle of ships
yearly."
When Captain Newport returned to England in June, 1607, he carried
with him a request, from the colonists to the company, for carpenters
to build houses, and shipwrights to build boats. Upon Newport's return
in 1608, he brought with him a number of Poles and Dutchmen to erect
sawmills for the production of boards for houses and boats. This did
not prove to be a successful venture. Further attempts were made in
1619, and later, to establish sawmills in the colony. Instructions
sent to Governor Wyatt, in 1621, bade him "to take care of the Dutch
sent to build sawmills, and seat them at the Falls, that they may
bring their timber by the current of the water." Repeated appeals had
been made to the Company for ship-carpenters without success. In
January, 1621, the Governor and Council joined in an appeal for
workmen to build vessels, of various kinds, for the use of the people
in making discoveries, in trading with their neighbors, and in
transporting themselves and goods from one place to another. In reply,
a letter from the Company, in August, gave the encouraging news, that
in the spring, the Company would send an excellent shipwright with
thirty or forty carpenters. In preparation, they were advised to fell
a large number of black oak trees, and bark as many others. The
Company expected the sawmill to provide the planks and suggested a
place near the sawmill and ironworks for the shipyard. A thousand
pounds had been underwritten by private persons for sending the
shipwrights and carpenters who were promised by the end of April at
the latest.
The next spring, in May, the Council received notice that sailing on
the ship _Abigail_ were Captain Thomas Barwick and twenty-five other
persons for building boats, ships and pinnaces. They were to be
established together in an area of at least twelve hundred acres, and
were to be employed only in the trade for which they were sent. Four
of the Company's oxen were to be assigned to them for use in hauling
the timber.
Captain Barwick and his men settled in Jamestown. At first they were
employed in building houses for themselves and afterward began to
build shallops, the most convenient and satisfactory vessels, for
transporting tobacco to the large ships. Soon several of the men were
ill, from malaria it was thought, and by the end of the year many of
them had died. A letter from George Sandys, in March, to Deputy
Treasurer Ferrar, sent by the ship _Hopewell_, told the discouraging
news. He deplored the failure of the shipbuilding project caused by
the death of Captain Barwick and many of his shipbuilders, "wherein if
you blame us, you must blame the hand of God." He attributed the
pestilent fever that raged in the colony to the infected people that
came over in the _Abigail_, "who were poisened with stinking beer, all
falling sick and many dying, everywhere dispersing the contagion." Not
only the shipbuilders, but almost all the passengers of the _Abigail_,
died immediately, upon their landing. The contagion even spread to the
cattle and other domestic animals, it was said.
On March 31, 1626, Thomas Munn (?) came before the Council and the
General Court of Virginia and swore that he was at the making of a
small shallop, by direction of Captain Barwick, and that afterward
this boat was sold to Captain William Eppes, for two hundred pounds of
tobacco, and "as yet the debt is not satisfied unto any man." Upon the
death of Captain Barwick, Munn had delivered to George Sandys,
Treasurer, a list of debts owing, and this debt had never been paid.
Adam Dixon, who came over in the _Margaret and John_, was sent by
the Company as a master calker of ships and boats. He was living at
Pashbehays, near Jamestown, in 1624. As the years went by, a number of
shipwrights came to the colony from time to time, and were engaged in
private shipyards on plantations, or set up shipyards of their own.
Orphan boys were sometimes apprenticed to these shipbuilders until
they reached the age of twenty-one. They were expected to be taught to
read, write and cipher in addition to learning the trade of
ship-carpenter.
Many of the shipwrights who came to Virginia in the seventeenth
century, became land owners, some of them owning large tracts of land,
as shown by county records, especially in the Tidewater area. In
Lancaster on the Rappahannock River, John Meredith, a shipwright,
obtained, by patent, a tract of fifty acres. His sale of 600 acres is
recorded, also a contract to build a sloop and a small boat, in
payment of a debt of 47,300 pounds of tobacco.
In Rappahannock County records, we find shipwright Simon Miller, a
noted shipbuilder, who owned a tract of 125 acres; and John Griffin, a
shipwright, who, in 1684, recorded a deed to Colonel Cadwalader Jones
for a bark of fifty odd tons, for the consideration of fifty pounds
sterling.
The first John Madison of Virginia, great-great-grandfather of
President James Madison, acquired considerable land in Virginia by the
importation of immigrants; in a land patent dated 1682, he called
himself a ship-carpenter. At this time, good ships of three hundred
tons and over were being built in Virginia, and probably John Madison
aided in the construction of one or more of these. It is evident that
many of the shipwrights, who came to Virginia from England, found the
life of a planter more desirable than that of a shipbuilder, while
some of them combined the two occupations.