The Virginia Company, as this great corporation was called, was divided into two subcompanies, the London and the Plymouth Companies, to each of which was assigned the task of colonizing one-half the territory.
Before many weeks had passed George Popham attempted to plant a colony in the part assigned to the Plymouth Company, but it utterly failed.
The London Company, meanwhile, had fitted up three small vessels, the Godspeed, the Discovery, and the Susan Constant, placed one hundred and five colonists aboard, and sent them forth to plant a colony. They sailed from the Downs on New Year’s Day, 1607, and after a stormy voyage of almost four months dropped anchor off a pleasant point of land, to which in gratitude they gave the name “Point Comfort.”
JAMESTOWN, THE FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT
As they had been warned, however, to establish this settlement far up a navigable river, out of danger from wandering vessels of the Spanish Main, they entered the beautiful river of Powhatan, which they called the James, and sailed up it for some fifty miles until they came to a wooded island, which they chose as the site of their colony. There they cut logs and built the rude huts which marked the site of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement within the limits of what we now know as the United States of America.
THE MAYFLOWER
The pilgrim ship is shown as it entered Plymouth Harbor bringing the first New England settlers.
Through sorrow and privations, surrounded by the nameless terrors of an unknown wilderness, harassed by savages, and disheartened by sickness, the little colony survived as by a miracle, and became the nucleus of a nation. Of the old Jamestown nothing now remains but an ancient church tower overgrown with ivy and a few crumbling tombstones. But its honor remains, secure in the hearts of a grateful people.
