The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Notes on Shipbuilding and Shipping in Colonial Virginia, by Cerinda W. Evans This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Some Notes on Shipbuilding and Shipping in Colonial Virginia Author: Cerinda W. Evans Release Date: August 30, 2014 [EBook #46731] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME NOTES ON SHIPBUILDING *** Produced by Mark C. Orton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Some Notes On Shipbuilding and Shipping In Colonial Virginia By CERINDA W. EVANS Librarian Emeritus, The Mariners Museum Newport News, Virginia Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation Williamsburg, Virginia 1957 COPYRIGHT©, 1957 BY THE MARINERS MUSEUM, NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet, Number 22 AS CONCERNING SHIPS It is that which everyone knoweth and can say They are our Weapons They are our Armaments They are our Strength They are our Pleasures They are our Defence They are our Profit The Subject by them is made rich The Kingdom through them, strong The Prince in them is mighty In a word: By them in a manner we live The Kingdom is, the King reigneth. (From The Trades Increase, London, 1615) SHIPBUILDING AND SHIPPING THE DUGOUT CANOE Various types of watercraft used in Colonial Virginia have been mentioned in the records. The dugout canoe of the Indians was found by the settlers upon arrival, and was one of the chief means of transportation until the colony was firmly established. It is of great importance in the history of transportation from its use in pre-history to its use in the world today. From the dugout have come the piragua, Rose's tobacco boat, and the Chesapeake Bay canoe and bugeye as we see them today. The first boats in use by the colony in addition to the Indian canoe were ships' boats—barges, long-boats, and others. A shallop brought over in sections was fitted together and used in the first explorations. As the years went by, however, "almost every planter, great and small, had a boat of one kind or another. Canoes, bateaux, punts, piraguas, shallops, flats, pinnaces, sloops, appear with monotonous regularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth century records of Virginia and Maryland." Little is known about the construction of boats in the colony except the log canoe. A long and thick tree was chosen according to the size of the boat desired, and a fire made on the ground around its base. The fire was kept burning until the tree had fallen. Then burning off the top and boughs, the trunk was raised upon poles laid over crosswise on forked posts so as to work at a comfortable height. The bark was removed with shells; gum and rosin spread on the upper side to the length desired and set on fire. By alternately burning and scraping, the log was hollowed out to the desired depth and width. The ends were scraped off and rounded for smooth navigating. Captain John Smith, who had a number of occasions to use the canoe, wrote that some were an elne deep (forty-five inches), and forty or fifty feet in length; some would bear forty men, but the most ordinary were smaller and carried ten, twenty, or thirty men. "Instead of oars, they use paddles or sticks with which they will row faster than our barges." Additional space and graceful lines in the canoes were secured by spreading the sides. To do this, the hollowed log was filled with water and heated by dropping in hot stones until the wood became soft enough to bend into the desired shape by forcing the sides apart with sticks of different lengths and allowed to harden. The tools with which the Indians built their boats and used for other purposes, were tomahawks of stone sharpened at one end or both, or one end was rounded off for use as a hammer. A circular indentation was made in the center to secure the tomahawk to the handle. Another method of fitting the stone tomahawk to a handle was to cut off the head of a young tree, and as if to graft it, a notch was made into which the head of the hatchet was inserted. After some time, the tree by growing together kept the hatchet so fixed that it could not come out. Then the tree was cut to such a length as to make a good handle. Another method in use was that of binding the stones to the ends of sticks and gluing them there with rosin. Some colonists did not hesitate to take the canoes from the Indians, which they may or may not have returned. On one occasion the King of Rappahanna demanded the return of a canoe, which was restored. Among the first laws of the General Assembly was that for the protection of the Indians, enacted in August, 1619: "He that shall take away by violence or stealth any canoe or other things from the Indians, shall make valuable restitution to the said Indians, and shall forfeit, if he be a freeholder, five pounds; if a servant, forty shillings or endure a whipping." A story of an Indian and his canoe was told by John Pory, Secretary of Virginia, after he had visited the Eastern Shore. "Wamanato, a friendly Indian, presented me with twelve bever skins and a canow which I requited with such things to his content, that he promised to keep them whilst he lived, and berie them with him being dead." Several writers of boatbuilding have expressed the thought that the evolution of the Chesapeake Bay canoe and the Chesapeake Bay bugeye from the Indian dugout canoe was one of the most interesting developments in the history of shipbuilding. M. V. Brewington, in his Chesapeake Bay: A Pictorial Maritime History, says of this development: "The white man's superior knowledge of small craft soon indicated changes which would improve the canoe: sharp ends would make her easier to propel and more seaworthy; broader beam and a keel would increase stability; sail would lessen the work of getting from place to place. Sharpening the bow and stern was a simple matter; the increased beam was difficult because no single tree could provide the needed width. In time, the settler learned to join two or more trees together to give the beam desired. He learned how to add topsides, first of hewn logs, later of sawed plank. A keel was added and a sailing rig. After the centerboard was invented, it took the place of a keel…." "But the culmination of the simple, single log, trough-shaped Indian dugout was the bugeye, a complex vessel as much as eighty-five feet in length. There was an intermediate step between the canoe and the bugeye, the brogan, a large canoe, partially decked, with a cuddy forward in which a couple of men could sleep and cook…. The earliest known use of the name "bugeye" was in 1868, but doubtless the word was not coined upon the first appearance of the vessel itself…. In essence the bugeye was a large canoe, fully decked, with a fixed rig following that of the brogan. There were full accommodations for the crew which, because the vessel was built for oyster dredging, needed to be comparatively large…. Throughout the course of development from canoe to bugeye, the original dugout log bottom was always apparent in this most truly American craft." VIRGINIA-BUILT PINNACES The smallest of the three vessels that reached Virginia in April, 1607, was the little pinnace Discovery, a favorite type of small vessel in that period. The first English vessel known to have been built in the New World was a pinnace. A colonizing expedition to Raleigh's colony on Roanoke Island left Plymouth, England, on April 9, 1585, with a fleet of five vessels and two pinnaces attached as tenders. A storm sank the tender to the Tiger, Sir Richard Grenville's flagship. On the 15th of May, the fleet came to anchor in the Bay of Mosquetal (Mosquito), and a landing was made at St. John on the Island of Puerto Rico. Here an encampment was made to give the men time to refresh themselves and to build a new pinnace for the Tiger. A forge was set up to make the nails, and trees were cut and hauled to camp on a low four-wheeled truck for the boat's timber. The ship's carpenters made speedy headway, launching and rigging the pinnace in ten days. They set sail from St. John on the 29th of May, the new pinnace carrying twenty men and, on the 27th of July, anchored at Hatoraske on the way to Roanoke. The second English vessel known to have been built in North America was also a pinnace. The members of the second colony of Virginia left Plymouth, England, on the last day of May, 1607, under command of Captain George Popham, and located at "Sagadahoc in Virginia" at the mouth of the Kennebec River. There they set up fortifications which they called Fort St. George. After finishing the fort, "the carpenter framed a pretty pinnace of about thirty tons which they called Virginia, the shipwright being one Digby of London." This little vessel is known to have made two voyages across the Atlantic. On June 7, 1609, a fleet of seven ships and two pinnaces left Plymouth, England, for Jamestown. After a few days out, one of the pinnaces returned to England, but the other, the little Virginia, remained with the fleet as the tender to the flagship Sea Venture. Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant Governor under Lord De La Warr, and Sir George Somers, Admiral of the fleet, embarked on the Sea Venture, commanded by Captain Christopher Newport, Vice Admiral. These three men were leaders of the expedition and in order to avoid any dispute as to precedence, they agreed—very unwisely, it was disclosed—to sail on the same ship "with several commissions sealed, successively to take place one after another, considering the uncertainty of human life." WRECK OF THE Sea Venture On July 28, a violent storm arose which separated the Sea Venture from the rest of the fleet. This "dreadful tempest" was the tail of a West Indies hurricane and lasted four days and nights. An account of it written in 1610, by William Strachey, secretary to Lord De La Warr, and a passenger on the ship, is said to be one of the finest descriptions of a storm in all literature, and led to the writing of The Tempest by Shakespeare. The letter was written to a person unknown, addressed as "Excellent Lady." Some excerpts are given herewith. When on S. James his day, July 24, being Monday … the clouds gathering thicke upon us and the wind singing and whistling most unusually, which made us to cast off our pinnace towing the same until then asterne, a dreadful storm and hideous, began to blow from out the north-east, which swelling, and roaring, as it were by fitts, some hours with more violence than others, at length beat all light from heaven, which like a hell of darkness turned black upon us, so much the more fuller of horror, as in such cases horror and fear use to overrunne the troubled, and overmastered sences of all, which, taken up with amazement, the eares lay so sensible to the terrible cries, and murmurs of the winds, and distractions of our company…. For foure and twenty houres the storme in a restless tumult, had blown so exceedingly, as we could not apprehend in our imaginations any possibility of greater violence, yet did wee still find it, not only more terrible, but more constant, fury added to fury, and one storm urging a second more outrageous than the former; whether it so wrought upon our feares … as made us look one upon the other with troubled hearts and panting bosoms; our clamours drowned in the windes, and the windes in thunder. Prayers might well be in the heart and lips, but drowned in the outcries of the officers, nothing heard that could give comfort, nothing seen that might encourage hope…. The sea swelled above the clouds, and gave battell unto Heaven. It could not be said to raine, the waters like whole rivers did flood in the ayre…. The winds spake more loud and grew more tumultuous and malignant. What shall I say? Winds and seas were as mad as fury and rage could make them…. There was not a moment in which the sudden splitting or instant oversetting of the ship was not expected. Howbeit this was not all; it pleased God to bring a greater affliction yet upon us; for in the beginning of the storm, we had received likewise a mighty leake. And the ship in every joint almost, having spued out her okam, before we were aware … was growne five foote suddenly deep with water above her ballast, and we almost drowned within, whilst we sat looking when to perish from above. This imparting no less terror than danger ran through the whole ship with much fright and amazement, startled and turned the blood and took down the braves of the most hardy mariner of them all…. The leake which drunk in our greatest seas, and took in our destruction fastest could not then be found nor ever was by any labour, counsell or search…. Every man came duely upon his watch … working with tyred bodies and wasted spirits three days and foure nights destitute of outward comfort, and desperate of any deliverance…. During all this time the Heavens looked so black upon us that it was not possible the elevation of the pole might be observed; nor a starre by night, not a sun beame by day was to be seene. Onely upon Thursday night, Sir George Somers being upon the watch, had an apparition of a little round light like a faint starre, trembling and streaming along with a sparkeling blaze, halfe the height upon the main mast, and shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud, tempting to settle as it were, upon any of the foure shroudes … half the night it kept with us; running sometimes along the main yard to the very end, and then returning. At which, Sir George Somers called divers about him, and showed them the same…. It did not light us any whit the more to our known way, who ran now as hoodwinked men, at all adventures, sometimes north and north-east, then north and by west, and in an instant varying two or three points, and sometimes half the compass…. It being now Friday, the fourth morning, it wanted little, but that there had been a general determination to have shut up hatches, and commending our sinfull soules to God, committed the ship to the mercy of the sea. Surely, that night we must have done it, and that night had we then perished: but see the goodnesse and sweet introduction of better hope, by our merciful God given unto us. Sir George Somers, when no man dreamed of such happiness, had discovered and cried land! The storm drove the ship toward the dangerous and dreaded islands of Bermuda. Nearing the shore, the ship was caught between rocks as in a vise and held there while all the one hundred and fifty persons reached the shore in safety. As soon as they were conveniently settled, after the landing, the long boat was fitted up in the fashion of a pinnace with a little deck made of the hatches of the wrecked ship, so close that no water could enter, and with a crew of six sailors, using sails and oars, Thomas Whittingham, the cape merchant, and Henry Ravens, the master's mate, as pilot, the boat sailed for Virginia. It was hoped, when news reached Jamestown of the safe landing of the passengers from the wrecked Sea Venture on Bermuda, that a ship or pinnace from the fleet in Virginia would be sent to take them home, but the long boat was never heard from again. BUILDING THE Deliverance AND THE Patience While waiting for help from Virginia, Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates decided to build a pinnace, in case of need. The work was put in charge of Richard Frobisher, an experienced shipwright. The only wood on the island that could be used for timber was cedar and that was rather poor, being too brittle for making good planks. The pinnace's beams were all of oak from the wrecked ship, as were some planks in her bow, all the rest was of cedar. The keel was laid on the 28th of August, 1609, and on the 26th of February, calking had begun. Old cables that had been preserved furnished the oakum. One barrel of pitch and another of tar had been saved. Lime was made of wilk shells and a hard white stone, which were burned in a kiln, slaked with fresh water, and tempered with tortoise oil. She was forty feet long at the keel, nineteen feet broad at the beam, had a six-foot floor, her rake forward being fourteen feet, her rake aft from the top of her post (which was twelve feet long) was three feet; she was eight feet deep under her beam, four feet and a half between decks, with a rising of half a foot more under her forecastle, the purpose being to scour the deck with small shot if an enemy should come aboard. She had a fall of eighteen inches aft to make her steerage and her great cabin larger; her steerage was five feet long and six feet high with a closed gallery right aft, having a window on each side, and two right aft. She was of some eighty tons burden. On the 30th of March, the pinnace was launched, unrigged, and towed to "a little round island" nearer the ponds and wells of fresh water, with easier access to the sea, the channel there being deep enough to float her when masts, sails and all her trim had been placed on her. "When she began to swim (upon her launching) our Governor called her The Deliverance." Late in November, and still with no word from Virginia, Sir George Somers became convinced that the pinnace which Frobisher was building would not be sufficient to transport all the men, women, and children from Bermuda to Virginia. He consulted with Sir Thomas Gates, the Governor, who approved his plan of building another pinnace. He would take two carpenters and twenty men with him to the main island where with instruction from Frobisher, "he would quickly frame up another little bark, for the better sitting and convenience of our people." The Governor granted him all the things he desired, all such tools and instruments, and twenty of the ablest and stoutest men of the company to hew planks and square timber. The keel laid was twenty-nine feet in length, the beam fifteen feet and a half; she was eight feet deep and drew six feet of water, and was of thirty tons capacity. Sir George Somers launched her on the last day of April, giving her the name of Patience, and brought her from the building bay in the main island, into the channel where the Deliverance was moored. After nine months on the islands, these fearless and undaunted men, with a stout determination to finish the voyage they had begun nine months before, set sail in the two pinnaces on May 10, 1610, and after eleven days, arrived at Point Comfort. "On the three and twentieth day of May, we cast our anchor before Jamestown." BOATBUILDING BEFORE 1612 The few available records of early boatbuilding in the Virginia colony differ so materially that one cannot make a statement as to number or kind of vessels with any degree of accuracy. That the first vessel constructed in Virginia was built earlier than the year 1611, and was of twelve or thirteen tons capacity, seems to be an accepted fact as given in the Spaniard Molina's Report of a Voyage to Virginia in 1611. The report also referred to a galley of twenty-five benches being built there. In his Short Relation to the Council of the Virginia Company in June, 1611, Lord De La Warr spoke regretfully of the fact that the three forts he had erected near Point Comfort were not properly manned because of a lack of boats, there being but two, and one barge in all the colony. The fishing, too, had been hindered because of this shortage. No mention was made of the galley that was said to have been in the process of construction. ARGALL'S SHIPYARD AT POINT COMFORT In a letter to Nicholas Hawes, written in June, 1613, Samuel Argall (later Sir Samuel Argall) tells of a voyage to Virginia in 1612, and some of his activities there. On the 17th of September, he arrived at Point Comfort with sixty-two men on the ship Treasurer, his course being fifty leagues northward of the Azores. From the day of his arrival until the first of November, he spent the time in helping to repair such ships and boats as he found there "decayed for lack of pitch and tarre." About the first of November, he carried Sir Thomas Dale in the Deliverance to Sir Thomas Smith's Island to have his opinion about inhabiting it. They found an abundance of fish there, "very great cod" which they caught in water five fathom deep. They planned to get a great quantity in the summer of 1613, and hoped to find safe passage there for boats and barges by "a cut out of the bottom of our bay into De La Warr Bay." This is an early mention of the need for a canal connecting these two bays. That the Sir Thomas Smith's Island referred to was not the island known by that name lying near Cape Charles is evident from the reference to large cod fish caught there, and the desire for a passage between the bays for a shorter route. Argall sailed from Point Comfort on the first of December and entered Pembroke, now Rappahannock, River where he met the king of Pastancie, who told him the Indians were his very great friends and had a good store of corn for him, as they had provided the year before. He carried his ship to the king's town and there built a stout shallop to take the corn aboard. After concluding a peace with other divers Indian lords, and giving and taking hostages, Argall hastened to Jamestown with 1100 bushels of corn, which he delivered to the storehouses there, besides the 300 bushels he retained for the use of his own company. As soon as he had unloaded the corn, Argall set his men to work felling timber and hewing boards with which to build a "frigat." He left this vessel half finished in the hands of his carpenters at Point Comfort in order to make another voyage to Pembroke River, and so discovered the head of it. Upon learning that Pocahontas was with the King of Patowomack, he devised a stratagem by which she was captured. Pocahontas was taken to Jamestown and delivered to the protection of Sir Thomas Gates, who hastened to conclude with Powhatan, her father, a peace based upon the terms demanded by Argall. Argall returned to Point Comfort and "went forward with his frigat and finished her." He sent a "ginge" of men with her to Cape Charles, to get fish and transport them to "Henries Town" (Henrico). Another gang was employed to fell timber and cleave planks to build a fishing boat. Argall himself, with a third gang, left in the shallop on the first day of May to explore the east side of the Bay. Having explored along the shore for some forty leagues northward, he returned on the 12th of May, fitted his ship and built a fishing boat, and made ready to take the first opportunity for a fishing voyage. OTHER VOYAGES OF ARGALL Samuel Argall is said to have achieved lasting fame as one of England's maritime pioneers by establishing a shorter route to Virginia from England in 1609, although Batholomew Gosnold took that route in 1602, and Martin Pring did so in 1603. The usual course led by way of the Canaries to the Island of Puerto Rico in the West Indies, the route of Columbus, a long, circuitous pathway exposed to pirates and interference from Spain. Argall made the round trip by the shorter route in five months. However, the shorter route did not supplant entirely the longer southern route for several decades. Argall accompanied Lord De La Warr to Virginia in 1610, to point out the northern route. While in Virginia, he was sent with Sir George Somers to Bermuda with two pinnaces to get a supply of hogs and other provisions for the colony. In a storm, Argall lost sight of Sir George's pinnace and failed to locate Bermuda; so he changed his course toward the north and went to Sagadahoc and Cape Cod where he procured a large cargo of fish, which he brought to Jamestown. Sir George Somers reached Bermuda, but died there on November 9, 1610. Argall was then sent by Lord De La Warr to the river Patawomeke to trade with the Indians for corn, where he rescued the English boy, Henry Spelman, who had been living with the Indians. Through Spelman's influence, the Indians "fraughted his ship with corn." Soon after June 28, 1613, Argall sailed from Virginia on his "fishing voyage" in a well-armoured English man-of-war. His object was the French colony of Jesuits at Mt. Desert, now in Maine, but at that time within the bounds of Virginia. He attacked the buildings and returned with the priests late in July. He was sent back by Gates to destroy the buildings and fortifications there and at St. Croix and Port Royal. This was done and he arrived back at Jamestown, about the first of December. On this voyage, he stopped at New Netherlands, on the Hudson, and forced the colonists there to submit to the crown of England. SHIPBUILDING ON PLANTATIONS The tracts of land or plantations occupied by individual settlers of the colony were very few until after the "starving time" in 1610. When the colony had been reorganized by Lord De La Warr and Sir Thomas Gates, and something like peace existed with the Indians, more land patents were issued year after year. A list of land owners, in 1625, in the records of the Company, shows nearly two hundred persons owning plots of land varying in size from forty acres to the thirty- seven hundred acres of Sir George Yeardley's plantation at Hungar's river on the Eastern Shore. I n A Perfect Description of Virginia by an unnamed writer in 1648, it is stated that there were in the colony "pinnaces, barks, great and small boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon the rivers' sides and up little creeks and but a small way into the land." Every planter must have had a boat of some kind. Neighborly communication had to be maintained, religious services attended, fishing and oystering to be done, crops of tobacco transferred to the ships anchored out in the channel, and cargoes of goods taken from the ships to the warehouses. The planter navigated the boat himself unless he could provide a slave or an indentured servant. Most of the shipbuilding done on the plantations was done by ship carpenters or men trained by them. The shipyards were very simple affairs, the essentials being a plot of ground on the bank of a stream with water deep enough to float the vessel and near a supply of suitable timber. Later would be added, perhaps, a small pier to which the boat could be attached, and a small building or shed for the protection of tools. A visiting ship in need of repair would seek some convenient place on the river and the hospitality of the neighboring planter. An instance is that of Captain Thomas Dermer from Monhegan, North Virginia, now in Maine, who arrived at the colony in September, 1619, in an open pinnace of five tons. He had met Captain Ward several weeks earlier at a place called "St. James his Isles," and there had put most of his provisions on board the Sampson, Captain Ward's boat. Of his arrival in Virginia, he wrote to Samuel Purchas as follows: "After a little refreshing, we recovered up the river to James Citie and from thence to Captain Ward his plantation, where immediately we fell to hewing boards for a close deck." He and his men soon fell sick with malaria and "were sore shaken with burning fever." As their recovery was slow and winter had overtaken them, Dermer decided to wait until spring before sailing north. Captain John Ward had arrived in Virginia during the previous April and was already a member of the House of Burgesses. Some of the visitors did their shipbuilding more quickly. A Captain Thomas Young arrived in the colony with two ships on July 3, 1634, and by July 14, was reported by Governor Harvey to have built two pinnaces, and that he would be gone in two more days. Some planters on the larger plantations continued to build their own ships even after public shipyards had been established in seaport towns. Flowerdieu Hundred on the James River was a prosperous plantation, where many vessels were built. It had its own wharf where large ships could be moored for loading. Some shipbuilding at Westover on the James River is recorded in the diary of William Byrd II, who, after the death of his father in 1704, became owner of the plantation. In July 1709, Byrd wrote: "I sent the boatmaker to Falling Creek to build me a little boat for my sea sloop." Two days later he wrote: "I sent Tom to Williamsburg for John B-r-d to work on my sloop." Later in the month, he noted that John B-r-d had come in the night to work on his sloop. In November, he wrote: "In the afternoon we paid a visit to Mr. Hamilton who lives across the creek. We walked about his plantation and saw a pretty shallop he was building." In August, 1710, he wrote that he had taken a walk to see the boatbuilder at work. On August 9, he wrote that he had paid the builder of his sloop sixty pounds, which was twenty pounds more than he had agreed for. Later in the year, he noted that his sloop had gone down to the shipyard at Swinyards. Byrd acquired a new shipwright who came from England on the ship Betty in 1711. In March, he wrote that the new shipwright was offended because he had been given corn pone instead of English bread for breakfast. He had taken his horse and ridden away without a word. However, he reported later that the shipwright had returned. On May 15, 1712, Byrd reported that he had engaged Mr. T-r-t-n to build him a sloop next year. Several years later, he recorded the loss of his great flat boat, but it was found by a man at Swinyards. Swinyards was a place for public warehouses and a shipyard, located on the north bank of the James River, a short distance below Westover, opposite Windmill Point. At Berkeley, a neighboring plantation on the James River, owned by Benjamin Harrison, there were extensive merchant mills and a large shipyard where vessels were built for the plantation. On October 20, 1768, there appeared a for-sale advertisement in the Virginia Gazette: "A double decked vessel of 110 tons on the stocks at Berkeley Shipyard, built to carry a great burden, and esteemed a very fine vessel." Two years later, John Hatley Norton and a Mr. Coutts were negotiating with Colonel Harrison for the purchase of the ship Botetourt built there for which they offered 1100 pounds sterling. "She is as stout a ship as was ever built in America, and we expect will carry 380 hogsheads of tobacco," wrote Mr. Norton. THE VIRGINIA COMPANY'S INTEREST IN BOATBUILDING When Sir Thomas Smith ended his term as Treasurer of the Company in 1619, among many other charges brought against him by the opposing faction, it was declared there was left only one old frigate belonging to Somers' Isles, one shallop, one ship's boat, and two small boats belonging to private persons. In his defense, Smith referred to the 150 men he had sent to Virginia to set up iron works; the making of cordage, pitch, tar, pot and soap-ashes from material at hand; the cutting of timber and masts; and how he had sent men to erect sawmills for cutting planks for building houses and ships. In justification of Smith and himself, Robert Johnson, alderman, a leader during Smith's administration, drew up an account in which he stated among other evidences of prosperity that barks, pinnaces, shallops, barges, and other boats had been built in the colony; but this statement was not accepted as fact. Sir Edwin Sandys succeeded Smith as Treasurer; and in the Earl of Southampton's administration in 1621, a list of improvements was drawn up, among which it was claimed that the number of boats was ten times multiplied and that there were four ships owned by the colony. A reply to this may be taken from An Answer to a Declaration of the Present State of Virginia in May, 1623, in which it was declared that the new administration was many degrees behind the old government, for in those times there were built boats of all sorts, barges, pinnaces, frigates, hoyes, shallops and the like. The great massacre in March, 1622, put an immediate check on any progress in boatbuilding in the colony. For a time the settlers were panic stricken, and there was much talk of assembling all the remaining settlers on the Eastern Shore, but happily, wiser counsel prevailed. That the few boatwrights then in the colony perished is considered probable from the fact that none could be found to repair a boat that had drifted ashore at Elizabeth City after the massacre. When writing about the Indian massacre, Captain John Smith, in his General History of Virginia, in a bitter outburst, said: "Yea, they borrowed our boats to transport themselves over the river to consult on the develish murder that insued and of our utter extirpation." In Sir Francis Wyatt's commission to Sir George Yeardley on September 10, 1622, to attack the Indians in punishment for the massacre, he ordered the use of "such ships, barks, and boats as are now riding in this river as transports." The ships and barks may well have been English vessels. When Virginia became a Crown Colony in 1624, the reports on the state of the colony named thirty-eight boats, two shallops, one bark, one skiff, and one canoe, but this was considered inaccurate as many plantations did not report their vessels. SHIPWRIGHTS AND SHIP-CARPENTERS Every colonizing expedition to the New World had been deeply impressed by the wealth of shipbuilding materials to be found. The English were particularly enthusiastic, since the scarcity of timber in England was very serious. Here, in Virginia, were to be found all that was needed for building ships: "oakes there are as faire, straight and tall and as good timber as any can be found, a great store, in some places very great. Walnut trees very many, excellent faire timber above four-score foot, straight without a bough." The report went on in praise of the tall pine trees fit for the tallest masts, and the kinds of woods for making small boats: mulberry, sassafras, and cedar. Other materials were not wanting: iron ore, pitch, tar, rosin, and flax for making rope. The colonists saw in this wealth of materials a new source of supply at one-half of the previous cost. Both England and Holland had been purchasing their shipbuilding materials from Poland and Prussia at a cost of a million pounds sterling annually. One enthusiastic Englishman, when he heard these reports, wrote: "We shall fell our timber, saw our planks, and quickly make good shipping there, and shall return thence with good employment, an hundred sayle of ships yearly." When Captain Newport returned to England in June, 1607, he carried with him a request, from the colonists to the company, for carpenters to build houses, and shipwrights to build boats. Upon Newport's return in 1608, he brought with him a number of Poles and Dutchmen to erect sawmills for the production of boards for houses and boats. This did not prove to be a successful venture. Further attempts were made in 1619, and later, to establish sawmills in the colony. Instructions sent to Governor Wyatt, in 1621, bade him "to take care of the Dutch sent to build sawmills, and seat them at the Falls, that they may bring their timber by the current of the water." Repeated appeals had been made to the Company for ship-carpenters without success. In January, 1621, the Governor and Council joined in an appeal for workmen to build vessels, of various kinds, for the use of the people in making discoveries, in trading with their neighbors, and in transporting themselves and goods from one place to another. In reply, a letter from the Company, in August, gave the encouraging news, that in the spring, the Company would send an excellent shipwright with thirty or forty carpenters. In preparation, they were advised to fell a large number of black oak trees, and bark as many others. The Company expected the sawmill to provide the planks and suggested a place near the sawmill and ironworks for the shipyard. A thousand pounds had been underwritten by private persons for sending the shipwrights and carpenters who were promised by the end of April at the latest. The next spring, in May, the Council received notice that sailing on the ship Abigail were Captain Thomas Barwick and twenty-five other persons for building boats, ships and pinnaces. They were to be established together in an area of at least twelve hundred acres, and were to be employed only in the trade for which they were sent. Four of the Company's oxen were to be assigned to them for use in hauling the timber. Captain Barwick and his men settled in Jamestown. At first they were employed in building houses for themselves and afterward began to build shallops, the most convenient and satisfactory vessels, for transporting tobacco to the large ships. Soon several of the men were ill, from malaria it was thought, and by the end of the year many of them had died. A letter from George Sandys, in March, to Deputy Treasurer Ferrar, sent by the ship Hopewell, told the discouraging news. He deplored the failure of the shipbuilding project caused by the death of Captain Barwick and many of his shipbuilders, "wherein if you blame us, you must blame the hand of God." He attributed the pestilent fever that raged in the colony to the infected people that came over in the Abigail, "who were poisened with stinking beer, all falling sick and many dying, everywhere dispersing the contagion." Not only the shipbuilders, but almost all the passengers of the Abigail, died immediately, upon their landing. The contagion even spread to the cattle and other domestic animals, it was said. On March 31, 1626, Thomas Munn (?) came before the Council and the General Court of Virginia and swore that he was at the making of a small shallop, by direction of Captain Barwick, and that afterward this boat was sold to Captain William Eppes, for two hundred pounds of tobacco, and "as yet the debt is not satisfied unto any man." Upon the death of Captain Barwick, Munn had delivered to George Sandys, Treasurer, a list of debts owing, and this debt had never been paid. Adam Dixon, who came over in the Margaret and John, was sent by the Company as a master calker of ships and boats. He was living at Pashbehays, near Jamestown, in 1624. As the years went by, a number of shipwrights came to the colony from time to time, and were engaged in private shipyards on plantations, or set up shipyards of their own. Orphan boys were sometimes apprenticed to these shipbuilders until they reached the age of twenty-one. They were expected to be taught to read, write and cipher in addition to learning the trade of ship-carpenter. Many of the shipwrights who came to Virginia in the seventeenth century, became land owners, some of them owning large tracts of land, as shown by county records, especially in the Tidewater area. In Lancaster on the Rappahannock River, John Meredith, a shipwright, obtained, by patent, a tract of fifty acres. His sale of 600 acres is recorded, also a contract to build a sloop and a small boat, in payment of a debt of 47,300 pounds of tobacco. In Rappahannock County records, we find shipwright Simon Miller, a noted shipbuilder, who owned a tract of 125 acres; and John Griffin, a shipwright, who, in 1684, recorded a deed to Colonel Cadwalader Jones for a bark of fifty odd tons, for the consideration of fifty pounds sterling. The first John Madison of Virginia, great-great-grandfather of President James Madison, acquired considerable land in Virginia by the importation of immigrants; in a land patent dated 1682, he called himself a ship-carpenter. At this time, good ships of three hundred tons and over were being built in Virginia, and probably John Madison aided in the construction of one or more of these. It is evident that many of the shipwrights, who came to Virginia from England, found the life of a planter more desirable than that of a shipbuilder, while some of them combined the two occupations. CONTROVERSIES OVER BOATS The Council and General Court of Virginia were called upon occasionally to settle controversies over vessels of various kinds and to hear reports concerning others. The following reports are from the records of the Court for 1622 to 1632. At an early date, Robert Poole reported a trading voyage with the Indians for Mr. "Treasurer," in the pinnace Elizabeth, during which he gave ten arms length of blue beads for one tub of corn and over, and thirteen arms length for another tub. Anne Cooper complained that her late husband, Thomas Harrison, loaned a shallop to Lieutenant George Harrison, late deceased. It was ordered by the Court that she should receive one hundred pounds of merchantable tobacco from George Harrison's estate. An argument between John Utie and Bryan Caught resulted in the order that the latter should build Utie a shallop eighteen feet, six inches keel; six feet, six inches breadth; with masts, oars, yard and rudder, and to find the 1100 nails and six score "ruff and clench" desired. Utie was to pay Bryan for building the shallop six score pound weight of tobacco, and to furnish the help of a boy and the boy's diet. Also, he was to pay Bryan six score pounds of tobacco for a boat previously built for him. Captain Francis West, a member of the Council, desired that he be given the use of the Spanish frigate with all her tackle, apparel, munitions, masts, sails, yards, etc., that had been captured by John Powell, with a shallop built for that purpose, on an expedition to the West Indies in the man-of-war, Black Bess. He was required to pay 1200 pounds of tobacco to the captain and men. In trading for corn for Southampton Hundred, John Powntis was allowed a barrel of the corn for the use of his pinnace. Mr. Proctor had to pay Mr. Perry fifty pounds of tobacco for splitting Perry's shallop. Later, a shallop, which Edmund Barker sold to Mr. Rastall's men, was ordered returned to Mr. Perry, and Edmund Barker to be paid fifty pounds of tobacco for mending the shallop. To settle a charge against Thomas Westone by several men, he was ordered to appear before the Governor with his pinnace. At a later meeting, Thomas Ramshee swore that Westone was owner of the ship Sparrow and "did set her out of his own charge, from London to Virginia." This was an early seagoing vessel of a colonist, but whether built in Virginia, or purchased, is not stated. Nicholas Weasell received the most severe penalty, in cases concerning boats, when he was ordered to serve Henry Geny the rest of the year from February, for taking away Geny's boat without leave, "whereupon it was bilged and spoiled." Captain Claiborne purchased a shallop with appurtenances from Captain John Wilcox who had been "at the plantation called Accomack" since 1621. He paid Wilcox 400 pounds of tobacco for the shallop, and sold it to Thomas Harwood. Captain Wilcox failed to make delivery, and the court ordered the attorney of Captain Wilcox to make satisfaction to Thomas Harwood. The court was called upon to settle a controversy between Captain William Tucker and Mr. Roland Graine about a boat. A Mrs. Hurte was named as the owner of another ship in the colony, the Truelove, formerly owned by John Cross, deceased in England. A much discussed case was that of William Bentley, on trial for the killing of Thomas Godby, which resulted when Mr. Conge's boat ran ashore at Merry Point, near William Parker's house. While there, Bentley, who had arrived in the boat, got into a quarrel and fight with Godby, and was accused of killing him. These Court records show that most of the cases concerned vessels built in the colony: boats, pinnaces, and shallops. The ships mentioned were evidently of English make. The shallop was the most popular boat for use in the colony. It was a small boat from sixteen to twenty feet in length, fitted with one or two masts and oars, and suitable for exploring the creeks and rivers, collecting corn from the Indians, and transporting tobacco to waiting ships.