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.