The foundations of the Last (fourth) Statehouse Group as it extends toward the James River. It was the burning of this statehouse in 1698 that was the immediate reason for moving the capital of the colony from Jamestown to Williamsburg.
Adjacent to the church are a number of memorials and monuments erected through the years, particularly in 1907, to commemorate important events at Jamestown and to honor some of those outstanding in Virginia history. These include the House of Burgesses Monument (4) listing the members of America’s first representative legislative assembly in 1619, the Pocahontas Monument (5), by William Ordway Partridge; and the Capt. John Smith Statue (6), designed by William Couper.
The graveyard near the Memorial Church. The sycamore (center) now separates the graves of Rev. James Blair, a founder of William and Mary College, from that of his wife, Sarah Harrison Blair.
The footpath leads to the concrete walkway on the edge of the seawall. This seawall (built in 1900-1901) along the shoreline of the Association grounds and the later riprap extension of it now protect the site from further erosion. Walk to the right (upriver) along the concrete walkway. It passes near, but outside, the Confederate earthwork thrown up in 1861 when the James River approach to Richmond was being fortified. At one point a bit of history can be read from the ground in a Site Use Exhibit (7). The earth in the side of the embankment has been carefully sliced and various levels are identified—undisturbed ground, the level of Indian use, the zone with evidences of 17th-century use, and, topping all, the earthwork built by Confederate troops in 1861.
Just beyond, but at a point now in the river, due to the erosion of the last three centuries, is the site of “James Fort” (8), which was built in May and June 1607, and constituted the Jamestown settlement in the first few years. There is a large model of “James Fort” in the Visitor Center and a full scale reconstruction of it has been built in Festival Park above Glasshouse Point and adjacent to the Jamestown terminus of the Colonial Parkway.
In the words of William Strachey, recorder for the colony, the fort, as built in 1607, and standing in 1610, was “cast almost into the forme of a Triangle, and so Pallizadoed. The South side next the River ... by reason the advantage of the ground doth so require, contains one hundred and forty yards: the West and East sides a hundred onely. At every Angle or corner, where the lines meete, a Bulwarke or Watchtower is raised, and in each Bulwarke a peece of Ordnance or two well mounted. To every side, a proportioned distance from the Pallisado, is a setled streete of houses, that run along, so as each line of the Angle hath his streete. In the middest is a market place, a Store house, and a Corps du guard, as likewise a pretty Chappel ... [all] inclosed ... round with a Pallizado of Planckes and strong Posts, foure foote deepe in the ground, of yong Oakes, Walnuts, &c ... the principall Gate from the Towne, through the Pallizado, opens to the River ... at each Bulwarke there is a Gate likewise to goe forth, and at every Gate a Demi-Culverin and so in the Market Place....”
Just beyond the fort site, approximately 125 feet from the present seawall, at a point where it makes a pronounced turn to the right, is the First Landing Site (9) which the colonists reached on May 13, 1607. Here the next day, all came ashore and landed supplies. This spot, like the fort site, is now in the river. The Old Cypress (10), standing several hundred feet from the shore above the landing site, is said to have stood at one time on the edge of the island. This is visible evidence of the erosion that has taken at least 25 acres of the western part of the townsite.
