On the 26th day of April, 1607, three small ships carrying 105 colonists passed between Cape Charles and Cape Henry into Chesapeake Bay for the purpose of founding a colony in the land called Virginia. The voyagers took seventeen days to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of that region for such an undertaking.
First consideration for selecting the site was its possibilities for defense against a foreign foe, especially the Spaniards, in Florida and the West Indies. This was no idle fear. Spain and England had for many years been in conflict. Moreover, Spain claimed all of the Americas by the right of discovery.
The second most important thing for consideration was adequate harbor facilities. In both of these particulars, the site selected about thirty miles up the James River left little to be desired. The Jamestown peninsula jutted out into the river far enough to give an unobstructed view for several miles. The character of the land on either side of the river would have made difficult any attempt at an overland attack.
The James was sufficiently deep to take care of any ocean going vessels of that time. The heavily forested surroundings furnished protection from violent storms. The channel ran near the shore. Ships could be moored by cables to trees on the land.
From the standpoint of raising food stuffs, the colonists could hardly have picked a more unfavorable situation. The peninsula was connected with the shore to the north by a narrow neck of land "thirty yards over." As this narrow strip of land was usually flooded during times of high water, the peninsula was for most purposes an island by which designation it is generally known.
There were about eight hundred and fifty acres of heavily timbered forest lands on the island and about eight hundred acres of marsh covered with coarse reedy grasses but there was no cleared land ready for seeding.
Clearing forest lands even with modern tools and equipment is a slow laborious process. Cutting down the trees is only a beginning. The stumps with their interlocking root systems have to be removed. It takes many years for hardwood stumps to rot to a condition that they may be easily destroyed. Although the trees on Jamestown Island were large, they could be cut, and those with straight grained boles rived into clapboards, or the logs rolled into piles and burned for their ashes, a product that was in demand in England for use in the manufacture of soap.
The soil on the Island may not have been very fertile. The fact that the Indians had never cleared any of the land indicates they did not consider it of the best quality.