Photo courtesy National Park Service.
Boatbuilding Tools Unearthed at Jamestown
All tools in the picture were hand wrought during the seventeenth century. Some may have been forged at Jamestown.
TIMBERING
Timbering was one of the first activities undertaken by the Jamestown colonists and was one of the first English industries in America. The day the settlers arrived they began cutting down trees, for timber was needed to build their fort and town as well as to export to the mother country. Thomas Studley, a member of the first colony, reported that clapboards were made for loading on the ships which were to return to England:
Now falleth every man to worke, the Councell contrive the fort, the rest cut downe trees to make place to pitch their tents; some provide clapboard to relade the ships, some make gardens, some nets, &c.
Captain Newport left Jamestown in June, 1607 and aboard his two ships were clapboards and other wooden products.
The virgin forests growing in the vicinity of Jamestown furnished planks, masts, clapboard, wainscoting, and other wooden products needed by the mother country. As England had run short of timber and was paying exorbitant prices to European countries for naval stores and timber products, the supply furnished by the Jamestown colony helped greatly to relieve the situation. The Virginians were also helped, for timber was one of the few products which brought profits to the struggling colony.