When my _Tales of the Virginia Coast_ was published in 1950 the _New
York Times_ (Book Review) page "In and Out of Books" asked the Dietz
Press: "Do you really have an author named Pocahontas Wight Edmunds?"
Before the printer's ink was dry a reporter rushed in to tell him that
his grandmother had that name. I hastened to write that my
great-grandmother was named Pocahontas as was my mother, my niece and
several cousins. Besides we had two Matoacas in our family and all of us
are descendants in two lines, since first cousins married about a
century ago. The name of the present first lady of Virginia is Anne
Pocahontas Stanley, and Pocahontas was that of her mother. If ships,
hotels, camps, counties and commercial products appropriate the name,
why not descendants? To be named "Pocahontas" is to borrow glory and to
attract excitement as surely as dark flannel attracts lint.
When I was five our family visited the Croatan settlement near Red
Springs, North Carolina, and my father imprudently revealed the Indian
names of his wife and daughter. Mother blushed and I bawled as the
drunken crowd of Sunday afternoon clasped us to their bosoms so
tenaciously that Father could scarcely extricate us from their clutches.
Later in the week, Chief Locklear came calling in a golden, yellow surry
with yellow fringe, bearing tribute of native scuppernong grapes. They
were offered red and sweet, for red, sweet Pocahontas's sake rather than
ours.
I was usually given the Indian role in school plays. In 1923 I was asked
to take the Pocahontas role in the mammoth Virginia pageant in Richmond.
In 1925 the Fox News-Reel introduced me: "Descendant of Chief Powhatan
Opens the Biggest Book in the World." This volume was Dr. Matthew Page
Andrews's _Story of the South_, which had stood ten feet tall on the
stage of the Strand Theater when I had played "Carry Me Back to Old
Virginia" on my violin in front of the illustration of my ancestress.
Lecturers and notables have singled me out of the mob for the name's
sake only. The sonorous American poet Vachel Lindsay bent low as he
halted a campus receiving line: "My dear, I must kiss your hand!" When
Father told Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, who is also a descendant, of his wife's
and daughter's names, she told him: "Now, I want to shake both of your
hands."
A tobacco company sent an agent to ask if Mother and I, as descendants
of John Rolfe, the first tobacconist, would endorse their product. I
have received a letter while abroad addressed: "Mademoiselle, la
Princesse des Peaux Rouges." That is less surprising when it is noted
that a tavern called: "La Belle Sauvage" still stood in England two and
a half centuries after her visit. I was told, even before the daily
newspaper controversy in 1950 about her burial place that every English
school-child knows the story of Pocahontas. The English were delighted
when my three children and I signed the register book at the Pocahontas
Memorial Chapel of Unity on July 3, 1955.
The vestry book at St. George's Church at Gravesend, England declares
that Pocahontas is buried under the chancel there. However, in 1907 a
Mr. Tucker of Dover Road, Norfleet claimed to have exhumed the very
skeleton and relics one mile from the church. In 1923 the Associated
Press reported from Gravesend that excavations had been started to
locate the bones in the presence of the recorder of the church and
representatives of the English-Speaking Union and of the British Museum.
Thirty skeletons were secretly dug up, but not identified. On the last
day of May of that year, it was reported that citizens, who resented
having their ancestors exhumed, had told the offending archaeologists,
one of whom was a descendant of Pocahontas, that they would be punished
by visiting evil spirits. They peered furiously through the gates as one
hundred skeletons were dug up.
In 1914 the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Virginia had
placed two stained glass windows in the church, one depicting Ruth among
the alien corn, and the other Rebecca--that being the baptismal name of
the converted savage. The deserted church became the concern of Rev.
Daughton-Fear. He solicited funds to preserve it as a "Chapel of Unity"
for all faiths as a memorial to Pocahontas. Many Americans urged that
her bones be brought home. A Glass Company offered a reward for their
return, and gallant volunteers such as the Playwright Paul Green were
heard from until the project was dismissed as impractical.
I
John Smith was well worth rescue by Pocahontas for this country's sake,
if not for her own. Americans halt before his statue--however tarnished
and battered the brass. Still, he was no model lad in his lively day. He
was the bold exception to the rules of the school at Louth, England,
which he recommended for the other--and duller fellow. A duller fellow
would have dug in the lush Lincolnshire countryside forever and a day.
His tenant-farmer father, George Smith, had relished the life, whether
he was sitting as juror solemnly, or playing at bowls or horses right
jollily. He died early, leaving his family comfortable feather beds and
goodly pewter plates and candlesticks. His widow married too hastily to
suit her sensitive son John, who now tucked away his memory of her, and
deserted home, having already bolted his desk. Now that he was a free
young man, his place as an apprentice did not detain him, for the call
of salt and hemp in the port of Lynn had already lured him.
At this reckless point Lord Willoughby, his father's protector, stood
him in good stead. The noble was touched by lowly George Smith's bequest
of a two-year old mare. George could not have done better indirectly by
his son John. It was as if he mounted him on a dashing steed, champing
to be off for heroic travel. Willoughby lifted the fatherless young John
Smith into a knightly sphere which was rare for a lad of his station.
Besides being gratified by his friend's affection, he was mindful of
John's resourceful and entertaining companionship for his own two
gentler lads.
He invited him to "Grimothorpe," a rugged castle with a stone tower and
twelve chimneys. Willoughby had fought with Sir Phillip Sydney and he,
like Sydney, had ballads written about himself. John enjoyed his
hospitality before setting out with the boys' tutors, servants and
horses on a Continental journey. They went from northwestern to
southeastern France, stopping at Orleans and at Turenne. After six weeks
with the party, John continued on his own to Paris, Holland and
Edinburgh.
Returning to his home-town John, feeling "glutted with too much company"
took to the woods, where he studied the art of combat. After incredible
exploits, he returned to London as a seasoned hero of twenty-four years,
and was listed as "gent."
He was not ready to settle down yet by any manner of means and he
pricked up his ears at the clarion call of the West. Agriculture and
industry were bogging down and limiting commerce in England, and many
wanted a new livelihood.
The old world's clutch on western shores had failed. The Roanoke Colony
had filed valorously into oblivion to the South after Sir Walter Raleigh
had tried three times to establish a permanent settlement. Attempts in
the North at Elizabeth's Island and at St. George's Fort had been
equally unsuccessful. It was recalled now that Hakluyt had advised
Raleigh in 1586 that the present Virginian coast would be the most
favorable point for colonization. But Raleigh himself was now a prisoner
in the Tower of London, pacing back and forth on the narrow battlement
which was assigned to him for exercise. Queen Elizabeth I herself, as a
young prisoner there, had had but little more range--but she had reigned
long, and had been dead for three years, and the colony which Raleigh
had named Virginia for the Virgin Queen had disappeared.
Yet the men who now induced her successor, King James, to incorporate
two Virginia companies had been associated with Raleigh. That John Smith
should be included in their councils indicated how far he had gotten.
Since he was a veteran traveller, his betters had deigned to include him
in their enterprise, and he was to sail with the group sent by the
company for South Virginia.
Three ships were being loaded. Smith would be on the _Susan Constant_,
of one hundred tons, under Christopher Newport, which carried
seventy-one passengers, and which flew the red cross of England at her
masthead. The _Godspeed_, of forty tons was under Captain Gosnold, a
veteran colonist, and the _Discovery_, of twenty tons, under Captain
John Ratcliffe. All three ships were rigged alike, having three masts,
with square sails on the fore and mainmasts. The weather detained them
until February, although they got off to a false start just before
Christmas when they were clamped in the Downs until New Year's Day.
A third of the passengers were gentlemen, and therefore overbearing.
They resented Smith's assurance and soon had him in chains, accusing him
of exciting mutiny and trying to make himself king of Virginia. The trip
was as stormy without as within, and six weeks of each other's
discordant company seemed too, too much.
At long last, at dawn on the twenty-sixth day of April, they spied land.
Some of them ventured ashore to the envy of Smith, who was still in
chains. All day long they found the calm as deceptive as it was
enticing, for as they returned to the ship in the late afternoon,
savages crept toward them on all fours like bears with their bows in
their mouths. Gabriel Archer got wounded in both hands and a sailor more
seriously.
The colonists crowded on the _Susan Constant_ that night, and opened the
secret box which named the seven leaders. While each hoped to have his
name among the elect, none was so confident as Smith, although he was
not allowed to take his appointed place when his name was read out. He
would bide his time, knowing that he would soon be free to make their
maps with his feet as well as with his hands.
On the twenty-seventh of April they put together the shallop, which had
been brought from England in pieces, so that Newport and a group could
explore further. Their findings were delightful. Oysters covered the
ground as thick as stones and large and tender to the taste. Soon they
pounced upon strawberries too.
"Taste these strawberries! They are four times bigger and better than
ours back home."
"Still the Devonshire cream and sugar dishes are missing, as well as the
Devonshire cream and sugar."
"And the lass with the strawberry and cream complexion!"
"Those savages we saw yesterday certainly had no strawberry and cream
complexions."
They shuddered as they remembered their first glimpse of people painted
black or red, as if nature had not darkened them enough. As they
penetrated the savage forests, in the next few weeks, they learned to
expect any adornment, or none. Anything might dangle for earrings: a
bird's claw, or a chicken leg. A naively happy warrior even had a live
yellow and green snake which was attached to his ear, and coiled loosely
about his neck so that the snake would spring forward and kiss the
warrior's lips when he chose.
This particular day they encountered no Indians, but a fire-screen kept
them anxious.
"Who says that there are no cooks over here?" The odor of burning grass
had alerted them. "Sniff these oysters, sizzling yet on somebody's
fires."
On the twenty-ninth they set up a cross and called their first finding
"Cape Henry" for their prince. They spread a sailcloth no longer to the
wind, but blessedly to the beaming sun, and thanked God for bringing
them so far, thus far. Fortunately, another cape would be named for
Prince Charles.
On the thirtieth they found a good channel up the river which they named
"Point Comfort."
Here they saw five Indians. When Newport landed and laid his hand on his
heart, they discarded their bows and arrows and invited him to their
town, Kecoughtan. Here they tasted their first cornbread, and smoked
tobacco. Besides, they were entranced by a native dance which was wild
with shouting, stamping, and such antics as would have been expected of
wolves and devils.
On the thirteenth of May, having probed thirty miles up the river which
Indians called the "Powhatan," but which they would name the "James,"
they stopped at a place six fathoms deep where they tied their ships to
trees--as trustingly as if they had been country nags hitched to
churchyard posts. They landed the next day.
That first night many slept in the open, being too tired to fear any
rustling, whether of Indians or serpents, outside the rim of their
campfire. A few stood watch day and night. The brave explored the
forests to fell trees, but the cautious cleared a spot for tents that
was nearer the boat. Boughs of trees made up a half-moon fortification.
Clapboards were loaded on the ship to return to England where lumber was
not plentiful and free. They were not an industrious crowd by nature,
but necessity now pressed every mother's son of them to work whether his
mother had reared him to do tough chores or not. There were eleven
laborers, four carpenters, a blacksmith, a bricklayer, a sailor, a
mason, a tailor and a chirurgien.
The colonists had been warned against marshy land, and forbidden to
settle near a low or moist place, and that was just what Jamestown
Island was, although it looked enticingly green along the tawny river.
Half of its fifteen hundred acres were swampy, but the settlers counted
on making the cleared land produce crops in another year, and a quick
wheat crop just now. They were tired of seeking a haven, and this spot
had a subtle charm, for secret pools and creeks meandered from marsh to
forests, and wide weed-ridden marshes were slashed through the forests
like alleys. At Black Point they would soon see lilies and mallows
blanching the sable ground.
Smith was allowed to go with Captain Newport on an exploring trip to the
falls of the river in search of gold. On their way they made friends
with a savage chief who was the son of the great Powhatan. Their
"firewater" overwhelmed him for a day, but on the next day he was ready
for more.
While they were gone, the unprotected colony was attacked by Indians.
Fortunately, in Smith's absence, someone else had an idea, and a
thundering broadside from the boat dispersed the enemy who had victory
in their grasp if they had only known it. Smith had been suspecting that
mischief was brewing back behind the screens of fire which the Indians
maintained. Had he not told them that they needed a palisade?