Figure 5.—Plan of excavated features.
We know that as early as 1703 Frederick Jones had interests in North Carolina, because it was in that year that one Jeremiah Goodridg brought suit against him and he was then described as "late of London."[72] In 1707 Jones received a grant of 4,565 acres in what are now Jones and Craven Counties in North Carolina.[73] At that time he was living in or near Williamsburg—presumably on his 300 acres in James City County; in 1705 he was a vestryman of the Parish of Bruton with its church in Williamsburg,[74] and in the same year both he and David Bray were listed as being among the directors for the building of Williamsburg.[75] It would seem that he was a man of consequence in the county at that time.
Among the papers of the Jones family are indentures dated 1708 transferring property in both King William and New Kent Counties from Frederick to his brother Thomas Jones,[76] and it may well be construed that this transfer occurred at the time that Frederick moved to North Carolina. In the same year his plantation in Chowan Precinct, North Carolina, described as "land whereon the church now stands" was chosen as the site for a glebe.[77] This is presumably the same Chowan County plantation on which Jones died in 1722.
Figure 6.—Frederick Jones' wine-bottle seals showing matrix variations: 1, initials from single matrix, with right side of "[*struck-through I*
" poorly formed (same die as fig. 7, left); 2, initials from separate matrices, with large serifs on "F" and small serifs on "I"; 3-5, initials from separate matrices, with small serifs on both letters; 6, 7, initials from separate matrices, with heavy serifs on both letters. Seal 5 came from Pit A; all others from Pit B. The use of single-letter matrices suggests a 17th-century date for the bottles' manufacture, while the presence of various die combinations makes it probable that the bottles were not all made at the same time. It is likely that the bottles were among Jones' possessions when he emigrated to Virginia in 1702.]
In 1711 Frederick Jones and others residing in North Carolina appealed to Governor Spotswood of Virginia for help against the Indians.[78] In the same year his name again occurs on an address to Spotswood concerning Colonel Cary's rebellion.[79] Almost a year to the day later, he is recorded as applying at a council meeting for the return of salt carried from his house ostensibly for "Supporting ye Garrisons."[80] In July 1712 Jones acquired an additional 490 acres in North Carolina.[81] All of this evidence points to his being well settled in his new home by 1712.
Figure 7.—Wine bottles of Frederick Jones and Richard Burbydge, from Pit B. For scale see figure 19.
The colony of North Carolina developed more slowly than did Virginia. The first permanent English settlement in North Carolina was on the Chowan River in about 1653, with the population being drawn from Virginia. In 1663 the settled area north of Albemarle Sound became Albemarle County, when Charles II granted the territory to eight proprietors, in whose families it remained until an act of Parliament in 1729 established an agreement with seven of them (the eighth refused to sell) and thus turned the territory into a royal colony. Consequently, when Jones moved south, North Carolina was still in its infancy, a haven for piracy and beset by private feuds and troublesome Indians. In the years 1711-1712 occurred an Indian uprising of proportions comparable to those that had threatened the life of the Virginia Colony 90 years before.[82] It was this massacre of 1712 and its effect on the Jones family that occasioned the foregoing apparent digression into the early history of North Carolina.