Paces Paines; Where It Was and What's Doing There

Richard Pace was an ancient planter known in Jamestown annals as having warned of the devastating Indian raids of March 22, 1622. Early that morning, the Powhatans and their allies mounted a well-planned and coordinated surprise attack throughout the colony to drive the English from their ancestral homelands, which shattered a tenuous eight-year peace and left over a quarter of the settlers dead. The score of outlying plantations were decimated, but Pace’s alert spared Jamestown itself. The effect of the assault on the colony was not unlike that of the terrorists’ plane crashes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon almost four centuries later.

Chanco, an Indian Christian convert, informed Richard of the planned attack during the night before. After preparing the defense of his plantation, "Paces Paines" (on the south side of the James River), he then rowed his boat two or three miles across the river to Jamestown with his wife, Isabella (also an ancient planter in her own right), son George and Chanco, where he delivered his pre-dawn warning.

Richard and Isabella Pace had patented 200 acres in 1620 (100 acres each, as ancient planters) and developed Paces Paines as a small, fortified settlement. He died c. 1623-4 and the plantation was acquired from her and her son by William Swann in 1635. Today, it’s “a part of the tracts of land known as Swann’s Point and Mount Pleasant, which boast a rich architectural history.”

Mount Pleasant was further developed in the 17th and 18th centuries and has been the focus of a restoration project by its current owners. They have had the counsel of Nick Luccketti, one of the original members of the Jamestown Rediscovery team and now a Williamsburg-based forensic archaeologist who runs the James River Institute For Archeology. Recent archaeological testing under Luccketti’s direction has the located the likely location of Paces Paines in a field northeast of the main house.

According to the Mount Pleasant Restoration website (click on the headline of this post), “Attributed to Paces Paines were four households, all of which were headed by ancient planters. They included John Proctor and his wife, Alice, and their three servants; Phettiplace Close and Daniel Wattkins and their two servants; Thomas and Elizabeth Gates and William Bedford; and Francis Chapman. The Proctors were credited with two houses and the members of their household were very well armed.”

The website has an extensive and detailed discussion of the background, status, progress and plans for the restoration, together with maps and photographs of this significant early American colonial landmark. Be prepared to spend some time at this interesting site.

The website also says, “The archaeological survey of Mount Pleasant has discovered one of the four Paces Paines’ sites in the downriver or east field. The artifacts collected from the site are the same types that have been excavated at Martin’s Hundred including clay tobacco pipe bowls (one with markings identical to a pipe from Wolstenholme Town), fragments of Rhenish stoneware Bartmann or “bearded man” jugs, Iberian costrel sherds, and pieces of Staffordshire butterpot.”

The context for Paces Paines’ history is also found on the research tab on the website at “Historical Background of the Mount Pleasant-Swann’s Point Tract, Surry County, Virginia,” by noted Jamestown historian, Mary W. McCartney, which also can be linked through the headline.

Welcome to Jimson Harvest

Jamestown's Quatercentenary is history; we can reflect on the extraordinary discoveries that Bill Kelso and his crew have made on the island and the many books and articles that commemorated it. Nevertheless, we still lack a national awareness of the colony's most important heritage and legacies.

Almost all recent historians’ and popular accounts have focused solely on its background, founding and early years. Some have reported the new evidence of its settlers’ lives, diets, attitudes, habits and possessions from the treasure trove of 17th century artifacts that are being unearthed from the archaeological digs of the first James Fort and nearby English and Algonquian settlements. Others have described what is also being learned about the influence, roles and contributions of Europeans and Africans.

Jamestown's founding has a much deeper meaning than merely being one of our national origins. It was the seminal incident that introduced the opportunities to innovate many profound social, political, and economic tenets and constitutional principles that have come down to us through our history. Their lasting effect is what has differentiated Jamestown from other preceding or contemporary English and European settlements in America.

The recent histories have thoroughly chronicled Jamestown's first seventeen years, but, with few exceptions, given us only a glimpse of what was accomplished there. Professor Warren Billings argues, "...the significance of Jamestown lies beyond [those years, when] Virginia became a place quite unlike anything [its founders] envisioned, even in their wildest dreams."

When we look across its nine decades, we realize Jamestown's crucial place in our history, its contributions to our constitutional republic and how major threads of our heritage were first spun there to be woven into our national fabric.

Jimson Harvest aims to provide a forum for discussion of Jamestown's legacies and influence on our heritage and history.

Jamestown dig's discoveries

JAMESTOWN (AP) -- Archaeologists at America's first permanent English settlement are reporting the discovery of what they say are four significant finds.

The director of archeology at Historic Jamestown, William Kelso, identifies the most significant find as an early 17th century copper pendant depicting a Powhatan Indian.

The "corn-flake" fragile copper relief is "tremendously significant" because there are so few renderings of Powhatan Indians, said Kelso.

Click on the headline of this post for a link to the entire article.