A History of the Valley of Virginia by Samuel Kercheval (1833; 3rd ed. 1902)

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INTRODUCTION.

use no other sort of boats. In fine, the conjectures of the learned, respecting the vicinity of the old and new world, are now, by the discoveries of late navigators, lost in conviction; and in the place of an imaginary hypothesis, the place of migration is almost incontrovertibly pointed out.

SKETCH OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA.

Having given the foregoing brief sketch of the probable origin of the Indians in America, the author will now turn his attention to the first settlement of Virginia, a brief history of which he considers will not be unacceptable to the general reader, and as a preliminary introduction to his main object, i. e., the history of the early settlement of the Valley of Shenandoah in Virginia.

On the 10th of April, 1606, James I., King of England, granted charters to two separate companies, called the London and Plymouth Companies, for settling colonies in Virginia.* The London company sent Capt. Christopher Newport to Virginia, December 20, 1606, with a colony of one hundred and five persons, to commence a settlement on the island of Roanoke, now in North Carolina. By stress of weather, however, they were driven north of their place of destination, and entered the Chesapeake Bay. Here, up a river which they called James river, on a beautiful peninsula, they commenced, in May, 1607, the settlement of Jamestown. This was the first permanent settlement in the country.

Several subsequent charters were granted by King James to the company for the better ordering and government of the colony, for the particulars of which the reader is referred to Hening's Statutes at Large. And in the year 1619, the first legislative council was convened at Jamestown, then called James city. This council was called the General Assembly. It was to assist the Governor in the administration of justice, to advance christianity among Indians, to erect the colony in obedience to his majesty, and in maintaining the people in justice and christian conversation, and strengthening them against enemies. The said governor, council, and two burgesses out of every town, hundred or plantation, to be chosen by the inhabitants to make up a General Assembly, who are to decide all matters by the greatest number of voices; but the governor is to have a negative voice, to have power to make orders and acts necessary, wherein they are to imitate the policy of the form of government, laws, customs, manner of trial original spelling tryal, and other administration of justice used in England, as the company are required by their letters patents. No law to continue or to be of force till ratified by a quarter court to be held in England, and returned under seal. After the colony is well framed and settled, no order of quarter court in England shall bind until ratified by the General Assembly.*—Dated 24th July, 1521.