From the start, Virginia’s hardships made harsh words
inevitable: There was back-breaking, hand-blistering labor to do, and at least
half of the work force were gentlemen unaccustomed to, not to mention unskilled
at, manual labor. First, they had to find a suitable place to settle: Sailing
more than forty miles up the wide river that they named the James after King
James I, they chose a small, wooded peninsula about two miles long and a mile
to a mile and a half wide. It was actually an island, separated from the
mainland by a shallow creek, but the James River here was six fathoms [36
feet], deep enough to moor their ships a stone’s throw from the shore. Good for
ships, but bad for humans: they failed to notice that much of the island was a
swamp, and the water they drank was brackish.
By
June 15, seven weeks after they arrived, 104 men and boys (one man had died on
the voyage) had built a fort. Working and sweating (and no doubt, swearing) in
the hot Virginia sun, they dug over 1,600 feet of trenches nearly three feet
deep to form a huge triangle by the river’s edge. They chopped down hundreds of
pine and oak and elm trees. They dragged heavy logs of up to one foot in
diameter, one by one, to set vertically in the trenches to make a palisade with
walls eleven to fifteen feet high.
When
it was finished, the fort covered about an acre and a half, or roughly the area
of two football fields. It was a triangle 140 yards long on the side facing the
river, and 100 yards on each of the other two sides. With guns mounted at each
angle and only one entrance, a massive log gate on the side facing the river,
this palisaded fort would be a comforting defense against invaders—either
Indian or Spanish.
But log walls could
not keep out another enemy: disease.
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