“Fruitful and delightsome land…” Jamestown Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin

Today, the Jamestown Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin remembers the efforts of those early colonists of 408 years ago.

In their book, First Celebration of the Anniversary of the Settlement of Jamestown, Virginia on May 13th, 1607, the Old Dominion Society of New York described their event and included the address of the Honorable George W. Summers.

His speech that day told of the background of the Jamestown colony, how they arrived in the Chesapeake Bay and how they found their land.

The address began with descriptions of Sir Walter Raleigh’s earlier explorations that led to the Virginia colony.

An excerpt from that speech:

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By a deed, bearing date on the 7th day of March, 1589, Raleigh assigned the patent which he had obtained from Elizabeth, of March the 24th, 1584, to Thomas Smith and others. In this instrument he is styled “Sir Walter Raleigh, Chief Governor of AFFAMACOMAC (probably Accomac), alias WINGADACOA, alias VIRGINIA.”

Bartholomew Gosnold was the first to revive the spirit of colonial enterprise. He had made several voyages to the northern coast of the United States. He seems to have greatly admired the aspect of the country, its apparent fertility and its salubrious air. Through his zeal and active exertions, the merchants of London, Bristol, and Plymouth, were induced to believe that a profitable traffic in furs, skins, timber, and other commodities (to say nothing of the precious metals, of which an unexplored country did not deny hope), might be established, through the agency of a trading commercial company.

Perhaps nothing contributed so much to enlist public confidence in the scheme of Gosnold and his associates, certainly nothing tended more to insure its success, than that it was most ardently and zealously embraced by John Smith.

He was an English cavalier and soldier of fortune, about twenty-eight years of age, whose wonderful adventures and achievements, but that they are so well attested, would seem to belong to the creations of romance rather than the realities of sober history. To the most daring intrepidity, he united great quickness and correctness of judgment, and an equanimity of mind which never deserted him under the most trying and appalling circumstances. He had fought for the independence of Batavia, had lent himself to the service of Transylvania, in her wars with the Mohammedans, had so signalized himself as a knight, in single combat, as to be entitled to add to his heraldic emblazonry three Turks’ heads, with the motto “Vancere est vivere.” In the fortunes of war he had been imprisoned and enslaved. Twice he had been relieved by the pity and gentleness of woman. He had sought new perils in Morocco, and now, having returned to England, with all the enthusiasm of his nature, and in the ripeness of his varied experience, he was ready to give himself to the labor of founding a new State in the wilderness.

A charter or patent was readily obtained from James the First, which bears date on the 10th day of April, 1606, granting to Sir Thomas Gates and others, the country, from the 34th to the 45th parallel of latitude, and extending from Cape Fear to Halifax.

This was divided between two companies, who were to colonize Northern and Southern Virginia. The first company, destined for the South, having procured three small vessels, the largest of which did not exceed one hundred tons burden. Under the command of Christopher Newport, the little fleet, with one hundred and five persons on board, among whom was the gallant John Smith, set sail from Blackwell on the Thames, on the 19th day of December, 1606.

The geography of the sea was not understood at that day as it is now, nor was the art of navigation. The adventurers having remained, for a time, at the Canary Islands, did not reach the southern coast of the United States until the following spring. The charter authorized this company to make their settlement at any place which they might select, between the 34th and 41st parallels of latitude. It is quite certain that they intended to attempt a settlement at or near the locality that Raleigh’s colony had formerly occupied. It was, however, ordered otherwise. The “mariners had three days past their reckoning, and found no land.” The officer in command of one of the vessels, despairing of making harbor, was about to turn his course for England, when fortunately, or providentially, a furious storm arose, and, on the 26th day of April, 1607, the ships were borne, by the violence of the gale, into the magnificent bay of the Chesapeake.

Passing the headlands which form the entrance to the bay, they called the one Cape Henry, and the other Cape Charles, after the two sons of the reigning king.

Here we might pause to contemplate for a moment the emotions which the occasion was so well calculated to inspire in the bosoms of the colonists.

They were the first of the Caucasian race, so far as is certainly known, whose sails had passed between these Capes, or whose eyes had beheld the scene of panoramic beauty now spread out before them. Here was a noble expanse of tranquil water, surrounded on all sides, except its outlet to the sea, by shores clothed with forests, which seemed to have stood since the world began. The air, in this, the early spring, came laden with the perfume of opening bud and blossom. Numerous rivers discharged themselves into the bay, whose breadth and volume indicated distant sources, and whose currents, perhaps, rolled down the treasures of golden sierras. The presence of wild fowl and fish, in countless numbers, and of the most delicious varieties, suggested the facility and abundance of human subsistence.

Captain Smith, who was not only destined to be the preserver of the colony, but was its first historian, after describing the entrance to the Chesapeake, says, in his quaint but nervous style: “Within is a country that may have the prerogative over the most pleasant places known, for large and pleasant navigable rivers. Heaven and earth never agreed belter to frame a place for man’s habitation, were it fully cultivated, and inhabited by industrious people. Here are mountains, hills, plaines, valleyes, rivers and brookes, all running most pleasantly into a faire bay, compassed, but for the mouth, with fruitful and delightsome land.” * * *

“These rivers wash from the rocks such glistering tinctures that the ground, in some places, seemeth as guilded, where both the rocks and the earth are so splendent to behold, that better judgments than ours might have beene perswaded they contained more than probabilities. The vesture of the earth, in most places, doth manifestly proue the nature of the soyle to be lusty and very rich.”

Having spent the intermediate time in searching for a suitable place to plant themselves, the emigrants, with their 1 squadron, entered a noble river, called by the natives “Powhattan,” but which they named “James’s River,” in honor of the king, by virtue of whose patent they claimed the country. After ascending this stream some fifty miles, they selected a peninsula on the north bank, on account of its anchorage, supposed convenience for defence, to which they gave name of “Jamestown.” Here they landed on the 13th of May, 1607; and here and then began the Commonwealth of Virginia, one hundred and nine years after the discovery of the American continent by Cabot, forty years after the settlement of Florida, by the Spaniards, at St. Augustine, and thirteen years before the Pilgrims laid the foundation of New England, in the colony at Plymouth.

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The Jamestown Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin shows against a map of Virginia drawn by Captain John Smith, circa 1624.

Jamestown Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin