. Highways and byways of the South. clearings. In severalinstances the houses were deserted. I stopped atone such and was sitting to rest on the curb of thedooryard well when I was startled to see a large snakelooking up at me from halfway down the well. Thesnake had adjusted itself on the edge of a board thathad lodged there, and apparently was a prisoner insome danger of slipping off the narrow perch into thewater below, and with no chance of climbing up theperpendicular walls of the well. Jamestown is on an island of about sixteen hundredacres, three-fourths of which are arable. It is sep-a
. Highways and byways of the South. clearings. In severalinstances the houses were deserted. I stopped atone such and was sitting to rest on the curb of thedooryard well when I was startled to see a large snakelooking up at me from halfway down the well. Thesnake had adjusted itself on the edge of a board thathad lodged there, and apparently was a prisoner insome danger of slipping off the narrow perch into thewater below, and with no chance of climbing up theperpendicular walls of the well. Jamestown is on an island of about sixteen hundredacres, three-fourths of which are arable. It is sep-arated from the mainland by a creek a few rodsacross that is spanned by a rude bridge. Along theshores of the creek are salt marshes overgrown withrank grasses and weeds, and beyond the marshesare pleasant open fields variegated with oak and pine Round about Old Jamestown 3^3 woodland. In a little grove at the west end of theisland is what is lett of old Jamestown — a few gravesand a ruinous church tower close by the shore of the. A Rider broad river James. Not far from the church are theheavy earthworks of a fort. The fort, however, was noterected by the pioneers, but was one of the outlying de-fences of Richmond, thrown up during the Civil War. 324 Highways and Byways of the South The founders of Jamestown arrived on the Virginiashores in the month of May, after a rough winter voy-age that began December 19, 1606; and their senti-ments, as expressed by Captain John Smith, were that heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a placefor mans habitation. There were only one hundredand forty-four persons in the entire company, thirty-nine of whom were the sailors who manned the threevessels. About half the others were classed as gentle-men, and the rest as tradesmen and mechanics. It issupposed that they landed at the lower end of James-town island, or peninsula as it was then, and there theybuilt the first houses, but they moved within a fewyears to where the ruins of the to
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1904
