CHAPTER IV.
1608.
Smith's First Exploring Voyage up the Chesapeake Bay—Smith's Isles—Accomac—Tangier Islands—Wighcocomoco—Watkins' Point—Keale's Hill—Point Ployer—Watts' Islands—Cuskarawaok River—The Patapsco—Potomac—Quiyough—Stingray Island—Smith returns to Jamestown—His Second Voyage up Chesapeake Bay—The Massawomeks—The Indians on the River Tockwogh—Sasquesahannocks—Peregrine's Mount—Willoughby River—The Patuxent—The Rappahannock—The Pianketank—Elizabeth River—Nansemond River—Return to Jamestown—The Hudson River Discovered—Smith, President—Affairs at Jamestown—Newport arrives with Second Supply—His Instructions—The First English Women in Virginia—Smith visits Werowocomoco—Entertained by Pocahontas—His Interview with Powhatan—Coronation of Powhatan—Newport Explores the Monacan Country—Smith's Discipline—Affairs at Jamestown—Newport's Return—Smith's Letter to the Council—The First Marriage in Virginia—Smith again visits Powhatan.
On the second day of June, 1608, Smith, with a company of fourteen, consisting of seven gentlemen (including Dr. Walter Russel, who had recently arrived,) and seven soldiers, left Jamestown, for the purpose of exploring the Chesapeake Bay. The party embarked in an open barge of less than three tons, and dropping down the James River, parted with the Phœnix off Cape Henry, and crossing over thence to the Eastern Shore, discovered and named, after their commander, "Smith's Isles." At Cape Charles they met some grim, athletic savages, with bone-headed spears in their hands, who directed them to the dwelling-place of the Werowance of Accomac, who was found courteous and friendly, and the handsomest native that they had yet seen. His country pleasant, fertile, and intersected by creeks, affording good harbors for small craft. The people spoke the language of Powhatan. Smith pursuing his voyage, came upon some uninhabited isles, which were then named after Dr. Russel, surgeon of the party, but now are known as the Tangier Islands. Searching there for fresh water, they fell in with the River Wighcomoco, now called Pocomoke; the northern point was named Watkins' Point, and a hill on the south side of Pocomoke Bay, Keale's Hill, after two of the soldiers in the barge. Leaving that river they came to a high promontory called Point Ployer, in honor of a French nobleman, the former friend of Smith. There they discovered a pond of hot water. In a thunder-storm the barge's mast and sail were blown overboard, and the explorers, narrowly escaping from the fury of the elements, found it necessary to remain for two days on an island, which they named Limbo, but it is now known as one of Watts' Islands. Repairing the sails with their shirts, they visited a river on the Eastern Shore called Cuskarawaok, and now, by a singular transposition of names, called Wighcocomoco. Here the Indians ran along the banks in wild amazement, some climbing to the tops of trees and shooting their arrows at the strangers. On the following day a volley of musquetry dispersed the savages, and the English found some cabins, in which they left pieces of copper, beads, bells and looking-glasses. On the ensuing day a great number of Indians, men, women, and children, thronged around Smith and his companions with many expressions of friendship. These savages were of the tribes Nause, Sarapinagh, Arseek, and Nantaquak, of all others the most expert in trade. They were of small stature like the people of Wighcocomoco; wore the finest furs, and manufactured a great deal of Roenoke, or Indian money, made out of shells. The Eastern Shore of the bay was found low and well wooded; the Western well watered, but hilly and barren; the valleys fruitful, thickly wooded, and abounding in deer, wolves, bears, and other wild animals. A navigable stream was called Bolus, from a parti-colored gum-like clay found on its banks, it is now known as the Patapsco.
The party having been about a fortnight voyaging in an open boat, fatigued at the oar, and subsisting on mouldy bread, now importuned Smith to return to Jamestown. He at first refused, but shortly after, the sickness of his men, and the unfavorable weather, compelled him reluctantly to turn back, where the bay was about nine miles wide and nine or ten fathoms deep. On the sixteenth of June they fell in with the mouth of the Patawomeke, or Potomac, where it appeared to be seven miles wide; and the tranquil magnificence of that majestic river reanimated their drooping spirits, and the sick having now recovered, they agreed to explore it.
About thirty miles above the mouth, near the future birth-place of Washington, two Indians conducted them up a small creek, toward Nominy, where the banks swarmed with thousands of the natives, who, with their painted bodies and hideous yells, seemed so many infernal demons. Their noisy threats were soon silenced by the glancing of the English bullets on the water and the report of the muskets re-echoing in the forests, and the astonished red men dropped their bows and arrows, and, hostages being exchanged, received the whites kindly. Toward the head of the river they met some canoes laden with bear, deer, and other game, which the Indians shared with the English.
On their return down the river, Japazaws, chief of Potomac, having furnished them with guides to conduct them up the River Quiyough, at the mouth of which he lived, (supposed by Stith[57:A] to be Potomac Creek,) in quest of Matchqueon, a mine, which they had heard of, the party left the Indian hostages in the barge, secured by a small chain, which they were to have for their reward. The mine turned out to be worthless, containing only a sort of antimony, used by the natives to paint themselves and their idols, and which gave them the appearance of blackamoors powdered with silver-dust. The credulous Newport had taken some bags of it to England as containing silver. The wild animals observed were the beaver, otter, mink, marten, and bear; of fish they met with great numbers, sometimes lying in such schools near the surface that, in absence of nets, they undertook to catch them with a frying-pan; but, plenty as they were, they were not to be caught with frying-pans. The barge running aground at the mouth of the Rappahannock, Smith amused himself "spearing" them with his sword, and in taking one from its point it stung him in the wrist. In a little while the symptoms proved so alarming that his companions concluded his death to be at hand, and sorrowfully prepared his grave in a neighboring island by his directions. But by Dr. Russel's judicious treatment the patient quickly recovered, and supped that evening upon the offending fish. This incident gave its name to Stingray Island. The fish was of the ray species, much like a thornback, but with a long tail like a horse-whip, containing a poisoned sting with a serrate edge.
The party returned to Jamestown late in July, and found sickness and discontent still prevalent there. Ratcliffe, the president, was deposed in favor of Smith, who, of the council, was next entitled to succeed; but Smith substituted Scrivener in his stead, and embarked again to complete his discoveries.
On the twenty-fourth of July he set out for the Chesapeake Bay, his company consisting of six gentlemen, including Anthony Bagnall, surgeon, and six soldiers. Detained some days at Kecoughtan, (Hampton,) they were hospitably entertained by the Indians there, who were astonished by some rockets thrown up in the evening. Reaching the head of the bay, the explorers met some canoes manned by Massawomeks, who, after their first alarm being propitiated by the present of two bells, presented Smith with bear's meat, venison, fish, bows, arrows, targets, and bear-skins. Stith supposed this nation to be the same with the Iroquois, or Five Nations.[58:A]
On the River Tockwogh (now Sassafras) Smith came to an Indian town, fortified with a palisade and breastworks, and here men, women, and children, came forth to welcome the whites with songs and dances, offering them fruits, furs, and whatever they had, spreading mats for them to sit on, and in every way expressing their friendship. They had tomahawks, knives, and pieces of iron and copper, which, as they alleged, they had procured from the Sasquesahannocks, a mighty people dwelling two days' journey distant on the borders of the Susquehanna. Suckahanna, in the Powhatan language, signifies "water."[58:B]
Two interpreters being dispatched to invite the Sasquesahannocks to visit the English, in three or four days sixty of that gigantic people arrived, with presents of venison, tobacco-pipes three feet long, baskets, targets, bows and arrows. Five of their chiefs embarked in the barge to cross the bay. It being Smith's custom daily to have prayers with a psalm, the savages were filled with wonder at it, and in their turn performed a sort of adoration, holding their hands up to the sun, and chanting a wild unearthly song. They then embraced Captain Smith, adoring him in the like manner, apparently looking upon him as some celestial visitant, and overwhelming him with a profusion of presents and abject homage.
The highest mountain seen by the voyagers to the northward they named Peregrine's Mount; and Willoughby River derived its name from Smith's native town. At the extreme limits of discovery crosses were carved in the bark of trees, or brass crosses were left. The tribes on the Patuxent were found very tractable, and more civil than any others. On the banks of the picturesque Rappahannock, Smith and his party were kindly treated by the Moraughtacunds; and here they met with Mosco, one of the Wighcocomocoes, who was remarkable for a bushy black beard, whereas the natives in general had little or none. He proved to be of great service to the English in exploring the Rappahannock. Mr. Richard Fetherstone, a gentleman of the company, died during this part of the voyage, and was buried on the sequestered banks of this river, where a bay was named after him. The river was explored to the falls, (near Fredericksburg,) where a skirmish took place with the Rappahannocks.
Smith next explored the Pianketank, where the inhabitants were, for the most part, absent on a hunting excursion, only a few women, children, and old men being left to tend the corn. Returning thence the barge encountered a tremendous thunder-storm in Gosnold's Bay, and running before the wind, the voyagers could only catch fitful glimpses of the land, by the flashes of lightning, which saved them from dashing to pieces on the shore, and directed them to Point Comfort. They next visited Chesapeake, now Elizabeth River, (on which Norfolk is situated,) six or seven miles from the mouth of which they came upon two or three cultivated patches and some cabins. After this they sailed seven or eight miles up the Nansemond, and found its banks consisting mainly of oyster-shells. Skirmishing here with the Chesapeakes and Nansemonds, Smith procured as much corn as he could carry away. September the 7th, 1608, the party arrived at Jamestown, after an absence of upwards of three months, and found some of the colonists recovered, others still sick, many dead, Ratcliffe, the late president, under arrest for mutiny, the harvest gathered, but the stock of provisions damaged by rain.
During that summer, Smith, with a few men, in a small barge, in his several voyages of discovery traversed a distance of not less than three thousand miles.[60:A] He had been at Jamestown only three days in three months, and had, during this interval, explored the whole of Chesapeake Bay and of the country lying on its shores, and made a map of them.
In the year 1607 the Plymouth Company, under the direction of Lord Chief Justice Popham, dispatched a vessel to inspect their territory of North Virginia. That vessel being captured by the Spaniards, Sir John Popham, at his own expense, sent out another, which, having returned with a favorable report of the country, he was enabled to equip an expedition for the purpose of effecting a settlement there. Under the command of his brother, Henry Popham, and of Raleigh Gilbert, a nephew of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a hundred emigrants, embarking May, 1607, in two vessels, repaired to North Virginia, and seated themselves at the mouth of the River Sagahadock, where they erected Fort St. George. However, after enduring a great deal of sickness and hardship, and losing several of their number, including their president, Henry Popham, and hearing by a supply-vessel of the death of their chief patrons, Sir John Popham, and Sir John Gilbert, (brother of Raleigh Gilbert,) they gladly abandoned the colony, and returned to England in the spring of 1608.
It was in this year that Henry Hudson, an Englishman, employed by the Dutch East India Company, after entering the Chesapeake, and remarking the infant settlement of the English, discovered the beautiful river which still retains the name of that distinguished navigator. The Dutch afterwards erected near its mouth, and on the Island of Manhattan, the fort and cabins of New Amsterdam, the germ of New York.
Smith had hitherto declined, but now consented, September, 1608, to undertake the office of president. Ratcliffe was under arrest for mutiny; and the building of the fine house which he had commenced for himself in the woods, was discontinued. The church was repaired, the storehouse newly covered, magazines for supplies erected, the fort reduced to a pentagon figure, the watch renewed, troops trained; and the whole company mustered every Saturday in the plain by the west bulwark, called "Smithfield." There, sometimes, more than a hundred dark-eyed and dark-haired tawny Indians would stand in amazement to see a file of soldiers batter a tree, where a target was set up to shoot at.
Newport arrived with a second supply, and brought out also presents for Powhatan, a basin and ewer, bedstead and suit of scarlet clothes. Newport, upon this voyage, had procured a private commission in which he stood pledged to perform one of three impossibilities; for he engaged not to return to England without either a lump of gold, a certainty of the South Sea, or one of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colonists. Newport brought also orders to discover the Manakin (originally Monacan) country, and a barge constructed so as to be taken to pieces, which they were to carry beyond the falls, so as to convey them down by some river running westward to the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Vasco Nunez, in 1513, crossing the Isthmus of Darien, from the summit of a mountain discovered, beyond the other side of the continent, an ocean, which, from the direction in which he saw it, took the name of the "South Sea."
The cost of this last supply brought out by Newport was two thousand pounds, and the company ordered that the vessels should be sent back freighted with cargoes of corresponding value, and threatened, in case of a failure, that the colonists should be left in Virginia as banished men. It appears that the Virginia Company had been deeply incensed by a letter received by Lord Salisbury, (Sir Robert Cecil,) Secretary of State, reporting that the planters intended to divide the country among themselves. It is altogether improbable that they had conceived any design of appropriating a country which so few of them were willing to cultivate, and from which so many of them were anxious to escape. The folly of the instructions was only surpassed by the inhumanity of the threat, and this folly and inhumanity were justly exposed by Smith's letter in reply.[61:A]
Newport brought over with him Captains Peter Wynne and Richard Waldo, two veteran soldiers and valiant gentlemen; Francis West, brother of Lord Delaware; Raleigh Crashaw; Thomas Forest with Mrs. Forest, and Anne Burras, her maid; the first Englishwomen that landed at Jamestown.[62:A] Some Poles and Germans were sent out to make pitch, tar, glass, soap, ashes, and erect mills. Waldo and Wynne were admitted into the council; and Ratcliffe was restored to his seat.
The time appointed for Powhatan's coronation now drawing near, Smith, accompanied by Captain Waldo, and three others, went overland to a point on the Pamaunkee (York) River, opposite Werowocomoco, to which they crossed over in an Indian canoe. Upon reaching Werowocomoco, Powhatan being found absent, was sent for, and, in the mean time, Smith and his comrades were being entertained by Pocahontas and her companions. They made a fire in an open field, and Smith being seated on a mat before it, presently a hideous noise and shrieking being heard in the adjoining woods, the English snatched up their arms, and seized two or three aged Indians; but Pocahontas immediately came, and protested to Smith that he might slay her if any surprise was intended, and he was quickly satisfied that his apprehensions were groundless. Then thirty young women emerged from the woods, all naked, save a cincture of green leaves, their bodies being painted; Pocahontas wearing on her head a beautiful pair of buck's horns, an otter's skin at her girdle and another on her arm; a quiver hung on her shoulder, and she held a bow and arrow in her hand. Of the other nymphs, one held a sword, another a club, a third a pot-stick, with the antlers of the deer on their heads, and a variety of other savage ornaments. Bursting from the forest, like so many fiends, with unearthly shrieks, they circled around the fire singing and dancing, and thus continued for an hour, when they again retired to the woods. Returning, they invited Smith to their habitations, where, as soon as he entered, they all crowded around, hanging about him with cries of "Love you not me? love you not me?" They then feasted their guest; some serving, others singing and dancing, till at last, with blazing torches of light-wood, they escorted him to his lodging.
On the next day, Powhatan having arrived, Smith informed him of the presents that had been sent out for him; restored to him Namontack, who had been taken to England, and invited the chief to visit Jamestown to accept the presents, and with Newport's aid to revenge himself upon his enemies, the Monacans. Powhatan, in reply, refused to visit Jamestown, saying that he, too, was a king; but he consented to wait eight days to receive presents; as for the Monacans, he was able to avenge his grievances himself. In regard to the salt water beyond the mountains, of which Smith had spoken, Powhatan denied that there was any such, and drew lines of those regions on the ground. Smith returned to Jamestown, and the presents being sent round to Werowocomoco by water, near a hundred miles, Newport and Smith, with fifty men, proceeded thither by the direct route across the neck of land that separates the James from the York.
All being assembled at Werowocomoco, the ensuing day was set for the coronation, when the presents were delivered to Powhatan—a basin, ewer, bed, and furniture ready set up. A scarlet cloak and suit of apparel were with difficulty put upon him, Namontack, meanwhile, insisting that it would not hurt him. Still more strenuous efforts were found necessary to make him kneel to receive the crown, till, at last, by dint of urgent persuasions, and pressing hard upon his shoulders, he was induced, reluctantly, to stoop a little, when three of the English placed the crown upon his head. At an appointed signal a volley of musketry was fired from the boats, and Powhatan started up from his seat in alarm, from which, however, he was in a few moments relieved. As if, by way of befitting satire upon so ridiculous a ceremony, Powhatan graciously presented his old moccasins and mantle to Newport, and some corn; but refused to allow him any guides except Namontack. The English having purchased, in the town, a small additional supply of corn, left Werowocomoco, and returned to Jamestown.
Shortly afterwards Newport, contrary to Smith's advice, undertook to explore the Monacan country, on the borders of the upper James River, with one hundred and twenty picked men, commanded by Captain Waldo, Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wynne, Mr. West, and Mr. Scrivener. Smith, with eighty or ninety men, some sick, some feeble, being left at Jamestown; Newport and his party, embarking in the pinnace and boats, went up to the falls of the river, where, landing, they marched forty miles beyond on the south side in two days and a half, and returned by the same route, discovering two towns of the Monacans—Massinacak, and Mowchemenchouch. The natives, "the Stoics of the woods," evinced neither friendship nor enmity; and the English, out of abundant caution, took one of their chiefs, and led him bound at once a hostage and a guide. Having failed to procure any corn from the Indians, Newport's party returned from the exploration of this picturesque, fertile, well-watered region, more than half of them sick or lame, and disheartened with fatigue, stinted rations, and disappointed hopes of finding gold.
Smith, the president, now set the colonists to work; some to make glass, others to prepare tar, pitch, and soap-ashes; while he, in person, conducted thirty of them five miles below the fort to cut down trees and saw plank. Two of this lumber-party happened to be young gentlemen, who had arrived in the last supply. Smith sharing labor and hardship in common with the rest, these woodmen, at first, became apparently reconciled to the novel task, and seemed to listen with pleasure to the crashing thunder of the falling trees; but when the axes began to blister their unaccustomed hands, they grew profane, and their frequent loud oaths echoed in the woods. Smith taking measures to have the oaths of each one numbered, in the evening, for each offence, poured a can of water down the offender's sleeve; and this curious discipline, or water-cure, was so effectual, that after it was administered, an oath would scarcely be heard in a week. Smith found that thirty or forty gentlemen who volunteered to work, could do more in a day than one hundred that worked by compulsion; but, he adds, that twenty good workmen would have been better than the whole of them put together.
Smith finding so much time wasted, and no provisions obtained, and Newport's vessel lying idle at heavy charge, embarked in the discovery barge, taking with him eighteen men and another boat, and leaving orders for Lieutenant Percy to follow after him, went up the Chickahominy. Being overtaken by Percy, he procured a supply of corn. Upon his return to Jamestown, Newport and Ratcliffe, instigated by jealousy, attempted to depose Smith from the presidency, but he defeated their schemes. The colony suffered much loss at this time by an illicit trade carried on between the sailors of Newport's vessel, dishonest settlers, and the Indians. Smith threatened to send away the vessel and to oblige Newport to remain a year in the colony, so that he might learn to judge of affairs by his own experience, but Newport submitting, and acknowledging himself in the wrong, the threat was not executed. Scrivener visiting Werowocomoco, by the said of Namontack procured another supply of corn and some puccoons, a root which it was supposed would make an excellent dye, as the Indians used its red juice to stain their faces.
Newport at last sailed for England, leaving at Jamestown two hundred souls, carrying a cargo of such pitch, tar, glass, and soap-ashes as the colonists had been able to get ready. Ratcliffe, whose real name was discovered to be Sicklemore, was sent back at the same time. Smith in his letter to the council in England, exhibited, in caustic terms, the preposterous folly of expecting a present profitable return from Virginia. He sent them also his map of the country, drawn with so much accuracy, that it has been taken as the groundwork of all succeeding maps of Virginia.
Not long after Newport's departure, Anne Burras was married at Jamestown to John Laydon, the first marriage in Virginia. Smith finding the provisions running low, made a voyage to Nansemond, and afterwards went up the James, and discovered the river and people of Appomattock, who gave part of their scanty store of corn in exchange for copper and toys.
About this time Powhatan sent an invitation to Smith to visit him, and a request that he would send men to build him a house, and give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some guns, a cock and hen, with much copper, and many beads, in return for which he promised to load his vessel with corn. Having dispatched by land a party of Englishmen and four Dutchmen to build the house, Smith, accompanied by the brave Waldo, set out for Werowocomoco on the twenty-ninth of December, with the pinnace and two barges manned with forty-six men. Smith went in a barge with six gentlemen and as many soldiers, while in the pinnace were Lieutenant Percy and Francis West, with a number of gentlemen and soldiers. The little fleet dropping down the James arrived on the first night at Warrasqueake, from which place Sicklemore, a veteran soldier, was dispatched with two Indian guides in quest of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost company, and of silk grass. Smith left Samuel Collier, his page, at Warrasqueake to learn the language. The party being detained, by inclement weather, a week at Kecoughtan, spent the holidays there among the natives, feasting on oysters, venison, wild-fowl, and good bread, enjoying also excellent fires in the dry, smoky cabins. While here Smith and two others killed one hundred and forty-eight wild-fowl in three shots.
At Kiskiack, (now Chescake, pronounced Cheese-cake,) the severity of the cold again compelled the English to take shelter in the Indian wigwams. On the twelfth day of January they reached Werowocomoco. The York River being frozen over near half a mile from the shore, Smith, to lose no time, undertook to break his way through the ice; but the tide ebbing, left the barge aground on a shoal. In this dilemma, although the cold was extreme, Smith jumping into the icy river, set the example to his men of wading near waist deep to the shore, where, quartering in the first cabins that they reached, they sent to Powhatan for provisions. On the following day he supplied them abundantly with bread, wild turkeys, and venison. Like Nestor of old, he told Smith somewhat extravagantly, that he had seen the death of all of his people thrice; that he was now old and must ere long die; that his brothers, Opitchapan, Opechancanough, and Kekataugh, his two sisters, and their two daughters, were to be his successors. He deprecated war, and declared that when he and his people, forced to fly by fear of the English, lay in the woods, exposed to cold and hunger, if a twig but broke, every one cried out, "There comes Captain Smith." At length, after a long dialogue, Powhatan still obstinately insisting that the English should lay aside their arms, Smith gave orders privately to his people in the boat to approach and capture him. Discovering their design he fled with his women and children, while his warriors beset the cabin where Smith was. With pistol, sword, and target, he rushed out among them and fired; some fell one over another, the rest escaped.
Powhatan, finding himself in Smith's power, to make his peace sent him, by an aged orator, a large bracelet and a string of beads, and in the mean while the savages, goodly, well-formed fellows, but grim-looking, carried the corn on their backs down to the boats. The barges of the English being left aground by the ebb-tide, they were obliged to wait till the next high-water; and they returned ashore to lodge in some Indian wigwams.
Powhatan, and the treacherous Dutchmen who had been sent to build him a house, and who were attracted by the abundant good cheer that they enjoyed at Werowocomoco, now together plotted Smith's destruction. But Pocahontas, the chieftain's dearest jewel, in that dark night, passing through the gloomy woods, told Smith that great cheer would soon be sent to him, but that her father with all his force would quickly come and kill him and all the English, with their own weapons, while at supper; that therefore, if he would live, she wished him to go at once. Smith would have given her such toys as she delighted in; but, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she said that she would not dare to be seen to have them, for if her father should know it she would die; and so she ran away by herself as she had come. The attempt to surprise Smith was accordingly soon after made; but, forewarned, he readily defeated the design.
Upon the return of the tide, Smith and his party embarked for Pamaunkee, at the head of the river, leaving with Powhatan Edward Boynton, to kill fowl for him, and the Dutchmen, whose treachery was not as yet suspected, to finish his house. As the party sent forward to build the house had been there about two weeks, and as the chimney is erected after the house, it may be probably inferred that "Powhatan's Chimney" was built by the Dutchmen. It indeed looks like a chimney of one of those Dutch houses described by Irving in his inimitable "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is the oldest relic of construction now extant in Virginia, and is associated with the most interesting incident in our early history. This chimney is built of stone found on the banks of Timberneck Bay, and easily quarried; it is eighteen and a half feet high, ten and a half wide at the base, and has a double flue. The fire-place is eight feet wide, with an oaken beam across. The chimney stands on an eminence, and is conspicuous from every quarter of the bay; and itself a monumental evidence of no inconsiderable import. That the colonists would construct for Powhatan's house a durable and massive chimney there is every reason to believe, and here is such a one still extant, and still retaining, through all the mutations of time, the traditional name of "Powhatan's Chimney." There is no other such chimney in all that region, nor the remains of such a one. At the foot of the yard, and at a short distance from the chimney, which is still in use, being attached to a modern farm-house, is a fine spring, formerly shaded by a venerable umbrageous red-oak, of late years blown down. In the rivulet that steals along a ravine from the spring, Pocahontas sported in her childhood. Her name, according to Heckwelder, signifies "a rivulet between two hills," but this is denied by others.
In the early annals of Virginia, Werowocomoco is second only to Jamestown in historical and romantic interest; as Jamestown was the seat of the English settlers, so Werowocomoco was the favorite residence of the Indian monarch Powhatan. It was here that, when Smith was about to meet his fate,
"An angel knelt in woman's form
And breathed a prayer for him."
It was here that Powhatan was crowned by the conceited Newport; here that supplies for the colony were frequently procured; here that occurred so many interviews and rencontres between the red men and the whites. Here, two centuries and a half ago, dwelt the famous old Powhatan, tall, erect, stern, apparently beardless, his hair a little frosted with gray. Here he beheld, with barbarous satisfaction, the scalps of his enemies recently massacred, suspended on a line between two trees, and waving in the breeze; here he listened to recitals of hunting and blood, and in the red glare of the council-fire planned schemes of perfidy and revenge; here he sate and smoked, sometimes observing Pocahontas at play, sometimes watching the fleet canoe coming in from the Pamaunkee. Werowocomoco was a befitting seat of the great chief, overlooking the bay, with its bold, picturesque, wood-crowned banks, and in view of the wide majestic flood of the river, empurpled by transient cloud-shadows, or tinged with the rosy splendor of a summer sunset.
FOOTNOTES:
[57:A] Stith, 65.
[58:A] Stith, 67.
[58:B] Smith, i. 147.
[60:A] Smith, i. 191.
[61:A] Stith, 82; Smith, 200.
[62:A] Smith, i. 193.
