Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke; Or, the Eastern Shore of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill Abgoll's Visit And Dale's Gift Bearing in mind the stories brought back from the coast by Smith and his men, Sir Samuel Argoll, in 1613, determined to visit the Kingdom of Accawmack for the purpose of securing supplies of fish for the starving colonists along the James River. The following is his own description of the trip; I departed out of the River in my shallop, the first of May, for to discover the East side of our Bay, which I found to have many small Rivers in it, and very good harbours for Boats and Barges, but not for ships of any great burthen; and also great store of Inhabitants, who seemed very desirous of our love, and so much the rather, because they had received good reports from the Indians of Pembrock River, of our curteous usage of them, whom I found trading with me for come, whereof they had great store. We also discovered a multitude of Islands bearing good meadow ground, and as I think, Salt might easily be made there, if there were any ponds digged, for that I found Salt Kerned where the water had overflowne in certain places. Here is also a great store of fish, both shel-fish and other. So having discovered along the shore fortie leagues Northward, I returned, etc.1 From this description of the islands and their meadows, it is quite certain that Argoll landed upon Smith's 'Island, upon the Eastern beach of which the Atlantic hurls her lines of foaming breakers with appalling fury. At no place along the coast would the waters be more briny, or less polluted bythe drift of the inner waterways. In view of the scarcity of provisions in the settlements of the western shore, it was a natural consequence of Argoll's discovery, that, in June, 1614, John Pory, Secretary of the Colony, should send Lieutenant Craddock, with about twenty men, to Smith...