It was in September 1608 that Smith became president in fact and
inaugurated a program of physical improvement at Jamestown. The area
about the fort was enlarged and the standing structures repaired. At
this point, in October, the second supply arrived, including 70
settlers, who, when added to the survivors in Virginia, raised the
over-all population to about 120. Among the new arrivals were two
women—Mistress Forrest and her maid. Several months later, in the church
at Jamestown, the maid, Ann Burras, was married to one of the settlers,
John Laydon, a carpenter by trade. This marriage has been ranked as “the
first recorded English marriage on the soil of the United States.” Their
child, Virginia, born the next year, was the first to be born at
Jamestown. Here was the beginning of family life in the new colony. Soon
other women would arrive to help continue, or to establish, new homes.