BRICK ARCHITECTURE.
When Governor Harvey reached Jamestown in January 1637 he made a special effort to promote the growth of the town. The assembly passed an act offering a “portion of land for a house and garden” to every person who would undertake to build on it within 2 years. This was the beginning of considerable activity at Jamestown. A number of new patents were issued, and, in January 1639, the governor and his council could report that 12 houses and stores had been constructed and others had been begun. One of those already built was the house of Richard Kemp, secretary of the colony. His house was described as “one of brick” and “the fairest ever known in this country for substance and uniformity.” Kemp’s house is the earliest all-brick house in Virginia that it has been possible to date conclusively up to the present time. It was in 1639, too, that the first brick church was begun, and a levy was collected for the acquisition of a statehouse. Among the new land holders at Jamestown in this period of activity were Capt. Thomas Hill, Rev. Thomas Hampton, and Alexander Stoner, a “brickmaker.” As the area along the river was occupied, additional patentees obtained holdings just outside of the town proper and others settled in the few lots that were not in use. Sir William Berkeley, who became governor in 1641, continued the emphasis on the construction of substantial houses. In that same year, the colony acquired its first statehouse, formerly the property of Harvey and a building in which public business had been transacted for, perhaps, as much as 10 years.
In March 1646, measures were taken to discourage the sale of liquors on the island, and a system of licensed ordinary keepers was adopted. Later in the year, houses for the encouragement of linen manufacture were projected for Jamestown. In 1649, the General Assembly established a market and near the market area was the landing for the ferry that ran across the James to Surry County. Even this new action, however, failed to develop a town of any great extent. The same was true of the Act of 1662 which attempted to encourage a substantial building program for the capital town. Only a few houses were erected before the new impetus had spent itself, and, in 1676, it is known that the town was still little more than a large village. One of the more detailed descriptions at this time relates that “The Towne ... [extended] east and west, about 3 quarters of a mile ... [and] comprehended som[e] 16 or 18 houses, most as is the church built of brick, faire and large; and in them about a dozen families (for all the howses are not inhabited) getting their liveings by keeping of ordnaries, at extreordnary rates.”