BlondeyeLaurie
02-28-2007, 01:56 PM
IN re" above lac ein VA I located a right neat bit of historical info about this place and it's history...URL:
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/history/werowocomoco.txt
Text reads as follows:
"Werowocomoco - Situation of the Place; Wm. and Mary College Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1"
"WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE
QUARTERLY HISTORICAL MAGAZINE
VOL. X. JULY, 1901 NO. 1.
WEROWOCOMOCO.
SITUATION OF THE PLACE.
In the early days of the Colony of Virginia, Werowocomoco, the scene of
the romatic incident of the rescue of John Smith by Pocahontas, was, of
course, as well known as Jamestown. But, in a few years, the Indians
deserted the place, and when Strachey wrote about 1614, the Indian
head-war-chief, Powhatan, had retired to a town called Orapaks at the head
of Chickahominy river. The early historians were not over critical as to
localities, and after the removal to Orapaks there were no great ruins to
preserve the memory of the place where the frail wigwams of Powhatan once
stood. So as time went on the ancient site of Werowocomoco on York River
fell subject to the sport of tradition and guess work.
The first person to display a critical spirit in reference to the matter was
Mr. Henry Howe, who, in 1843, commenced traveling over the State
collecting materials and taking sketches for illustration. He fixed the ancient
settlement at "Shelly," the seat of Mrs. Mann Page at the mouth of Carter's
Creek, and his reasons for doing so appear to have been two-fold: First,
"Shelly" is about twenty-five miles from West Point, and John Smith had so
described Werowocomoco. Secondly, the place is marked by immense
deposits along the shore of oyster shells, which betoken the existence once
of Indian habitations.
Mr. Charles Campbell, the historian, after having adopted the above
opinion, renounced it in favor of another place only two or three miles further
down. On paying a visit to "Shelly"
----------
2 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE QUARTERLY.
and neighborhood, he became satisfied that Timber Neck Bay in
Gloucester, the ancient seat of the Manns, was the famous spot. Besides
conforming sufficiently in distance from West Point and abundance of
oyster deposits, it had the additional recommendation of an old chimney
standing at the east and thereof -- a chimney whose massive dimensions
suggested royalty, and which, it is said, was known from very early times as
"Powhatan's Chimney." Mr. Campbell supposed this to be the chimney to
the house made for Powhatan by some Dutchmen in 1609.
If there is really any "popular belief" as to the ancient location of
Werowocomoco, it seems to be traceable to the authority of Mr. Howe or
Mr. Campbell.
Dr. Alexander Brown was the first to substitute fact for tradition and guess
work, and in his great work The Genesis of the United States, he locates
Werowocomoco further up the river, at Portan Bay, quoting as his authority
the chart of Robert Tindall drawn in 1608. On this chart "Poetan," situated
on Portan Bay, about eleven miles from West Point, appears as the capital
town.* No town called Werowocomoco appears.
As Dr. Brown does not go into details, the purpose of this article is to
enquire into all the facts of the case and to conclusively settle the location
once and for all. I am of opinion that Dr. Brown is undoubtedly right in his
statement, and that in this he is not only supported by Tindall's map, but by
many other facts which he probably had not space to mention in his book.
Poetan, another spelling for Powhatan, was doubtless the real name of
Werowocomoco, which in the Indian meant the "town of the Werowance,"
or the capital -- a descriptive name. The ending, "comoco," meant a
"meeting" or "assembly," as is shown in the word matchacomoco -- a term
applied to a grand council or conference. The town was called "Powhatan"
because Powhatan lived htere, and under the various spellings of that word,
Poetan, Portan, Porton, Purtan, Purton, the place has come down to us, and
still abides with us. Tindall calls it Poetan (1608), Hermann Porton (1673),
Fry and Jefferson Portan (1751), Dr. Madison Portan (1807), and the present
coast sur-
__________________________________________________ ____
*It is marked on the chart by four wigwams. The other Indian towns by
one only.
----------
WEROWOCOMOCO. 3
vey "Purtan." In the York county records (1661) it is called Purton, and in
Henning's Statutes (1663) it has the same spelling.
At the latter date it was the home of another John Smith, called John Smith
of Purton, to distinguish him from other Smiths of that name in Gloucester
county.* It was at Poplar Spring, near Purton, that some servants, who had been
soldiers of Oliver Cromwell, concerted a rendevous for rebellion in 1663. But
they were informed upon by Berkenhead, one of their number, and the
conspiracy was nipped in the bud by Sir William Berkeley, the Governor.
Not much importance is to be given to the points on which Mr. Howe and
Mr. Campbell rest their cases. The distance, which Smith in one place assigns
to Werowocomoco from the parting of the river at West Point, was a mere
guess; for in another place he states the distance to be twenty miles, and in
still another he says that Werowocomoco was twelve miles from Chiskiack.
In this last statement William Strachey, the secretary of Lord Delaware,
agrees. Now Chiskiack was a region above Yorktown, whose locality is
definitely fixed. It was the name of an Indian town, and the parish subsequently
established embracing the site thereof, called first Chiskiack Parish and
afterwards Hampton Parish, extended, as the York records show, from
Yorktown Creek to Queen's Creek. The Indian town of Chiskiack being nearly
opposite to Carter's Creek and Timberneck Bay, could not, by any possible
calculation, have been twelve miles away from Werowocomoco, if the latter
had been located at Shelly or Timberneck Bay. But Purton is just about
twelve miles distant, and meets the requirement. That Smith hit the truth in
his last statement is shown not only by his agreement with Strachey, but by his
own map, which gives the distance between the places, Werowocomoco and
Chiskiack, as about twelve miles.
__________________________________________________ __
*In 1661 Anna Bernard, "now of Purton, in Petsoe Parish, in the county of
Gloster, in Virginia, widdow," makes a deed. She was the wife of Richard
Bernard, of Petsoe, Bucks. Her maiden name was Corderoy. Her daughter
Anne married John Smith, who came into possession of the place. (See
Bernard Family, Quarterly, V., p. 62.) In 1849, there was a renewal grant of
Portan (Purton) to William John Clarke, in which it was said to consist of
1,665 acres, and to be bounded by Broad Creek, York River, and Tanks
Poropotank Creek, or Adams Creek.
----------
4 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE QUARTERLY.
Another chart given by Dr. Brown, found in the Spanish archives, and
supposed to have been the one sent to England in 1608, with Smith's "News
from Virginia," tells the same tale. At about eleven miles from West Point and
twelve miles from Chiskiack, appears on a bay "Werowocomoco." Below
Werowocomoco, on the same side of the river are two towns, Cappahowsack
and Cantaunteck. There is at this day a wharf on the north side of York river
called Cappahosick (Cappahowsack), evidently marking the old Indian
district of that name; and this district, as shown on the charts, lay between
Werowocomoco and Timberneck Creek. The wharf is at least seven miles
above Timberneck Creek. It was this country of Cappahosic that Powhatan
offered to give Smith "for two great guns and a grindstone." Werowocomoco
was above it.
As to the deposit of oyster shells at Shelly and Timberneck, that proves only
that Indians lived in the neighborhood, but it does not prove that the particular
town called "Werowocomoco" was situated there. On the chart last mentioned
appears, just above Tindall's Point (now Gloucester Point), an Indian town
called Cantaunteck.
As to the sandstone chimney, there is absolutely nothing but its name
connecting it with "Powhatan," and in regard to this name there is nothing to
show when it began to attach to the chimney. This stone, which is full of fossil
remains, is undoubtedly of vast age, but it does not follow that structures
composed of it are ancient. The church at Yorktown, built in 1697, is composed
of the same kind of sandstone, and, as the church stood after the fire of 1814,
with all the woodwork destroyed, it must have looked a thousand years old. The
records show that from a very early date stone houses and stone chimneys
were not uncommon in Virginia.*
Nothing then remains of Mr. Howe's and Mr. Campbell's surmises as to the
location of Werwocomoco. That location is fixed by the charts and contemporary
authority indisputably at Portan Bay, on the north side of York River.
__________________________________________________ _____
* When I last visited the stone chimney, I found it prostrate and in ruins. Its
vast fireplace used to serve the purposes of a modern outhouse, which was
built on to it."
================================================== ===
Neat huh? Blessings~~~Laurie
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/history/werowocomoco.txt
Text reads as follows:
"Werowocomoco - Situation of the Place; Wm. and Mary College Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1"
"WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE
QUARTERLY HISTORICAL MAGAZINE
VOL. X. JULY, 1901 NO. 1.
WEROWOCOMOCO.
SITUATION OF THE PLACE.
In the early days of the Colony of Virginia, Werowocomoco, the scene of
the romatic incident of the rescue of John Smith by Pocahontas, was, of
course, as well known as Jamestown. But, in a few years, the Indians
deserted the place, and when Strachey wrote about 1614, the Indian
head-war-chief, Powhatan, had retired to a town called Orapaks at the head
of Chickahominy river. The early historians were not over critical as to
localities, and after the removal to Orapaks there were no great ruins to
preserve the memory of the place where the frail wigwams of Powhatan once
stood. So as time went on the ancient site of Werowocomoco on York River
fell subject to the sport of tradition and guess work.
The first person to display a critical spirit in reference to the matter was
Mr. Henry Howe, who, in 1843, commenced traveling over the State
collecting materials and taking sketches for illustration. He fixed the ancient
settlement at "Shelly," the seat of Mrs. Mann Page at the mouth of Carter's
Creek, and his reasons for doing so appear to have been two-fold: First,
"Shelly" is about twenty-five miles from West Point, and John Smith had so
described Werowocomoco. Secondly, the place is marked by immense
deposits along the shore of oyster shells, which betoken the existence once
of Indian habitations.
Mr. Charles Campbell, the historian, after having adopted the above
opinion, renounced it in favor of another place only two or three miles further
down. On paying a visit to "Shelly"
----------
2 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE QUARTERLY.
and neighborhood, he became satisfied that Timber Neck Bay in
Gloucester, the ancient seat of the Manns, was the famous spot. Besides
conforming sufficiently in distance from West Point and abundance of
oyster deposits, it had the additional recommendation of an old chimney
standing at the east and thereof -- a chimney whose massive dimensions
suggested royalty, and which, it is said, was known from very early times as
"Powhatan's Chimney." Mr. Campbell supposed this to be the chimney to
the house made for Powhatan by some Dutchmen in 1609.
If there is really any "popular belief" as to the ancient location of
Werowocomoco, it seems to be traceable to the authority of Mr. Howe or
Mr. Campbell.
Dr. Alexander Brown was the first to substitute fact for tradition and guess
work, and in his great work The Genesis of the United States, he locates
Werowocomoco further up the river, at Portan Bay, quoting as his authority
the chart of Robert Tindall drawn in 1608. On this chart "Poetan," situated
on Portan Bay, about eleven miles from West Point, appears as the capital
town.* No town called Werowocomoco appears.
As Dr. Brown does not go into details, the purpose of this article is to
enquire into all the facts of the case and to conclusively settle the location
once and for all. I am of opinion that Dr. Brown is undoubtedly right in his
statement, and that in this he is not only supported by Tindall's map, but by
many other facts which he probably had not space to mention in his book.
Poetan, another spelling for Powhatan, was doubtless the real name of
Werowocomoco, which in the Indian meant the "town of the Werowance,"
or the capital -- a descriptive name. The ending, "comoco," meant a
"meeting" or "assembly," as is shown in the word matchacomoco -- a term
applied to a grand council or conference. The town was called "Powhatan"
because Powhatan lived htere, and under the various spellings of that word,
Poetan, Portan, Porton, Purtan, Purton, the place has come down to us, and
still abides with us. Tindall calls it Poetan (1608), Hermann Porton (1673),
Fry and Jefferson Portan (1751), Dr. Madison Portan (1807), and the present
coast sur-
__________________________________________________ ____
*It is marked on the chart by four wigwams. The other Indian towns by
one only.
----------
WEROWOCOMOCO. 3
vey "Purtan." In the York county records (1661) it is called Purton, and in
Henning's Statutes (1663) it has the same spelling.
At the latter date it was the home of another John Smith, called John Smith
of Purton, to distinguish him from other Smiths of that name in Gloucester
county.* It was at Poplar Spring, near Purton, that some servants, who had been
soldiers of Oliver Cromwell, concerted a rendevous for rebellion in 1663. But
they were informed upon by Berkenhead, one of their number, and the
conspiracy was nipped in the bud by Sir William Berkeley, the Governor.
Not much importance is to be given to the points on which Mr. Howe and
Mr. Campbell rest their cases. The distance, which Smith in one place assigns
to Werowocomoco from the parting of the river at West Point, was a mere
guess; for in another place he states the distance to be twenty miles, and in
still another he says that Werowocomoco was twelve miles from Chiskiack.
In this last statement William Strachey, the secretary of Lord Delaware,
agrees. Now Chiskiack was a region above Yorktown, whose locality is
definitely fixed. It was the name of an Indian town, and the parish subsequently
established embracing the site thereof, called first Chiskiack Parish and
afterwards Hampton Parish, extended, as the York records show, from
Yorktown Creek to Queen's Creek. The Indian town of Chiskiack being nearly
opposite to Carter's Creek and Timberneck Bay, could not, by any possible
calculation, have been twelve miles away from Werowocomoco, if the latter
had been located at Shelly or Timberneck Bay. But Purton is just about
twelve miles distant, and meets the requirement. That Smith hit the truth in
his last statement is shown not only by his agreement with Strachey, but by his
own map, which gives the distance between the places, Werowocomoco and
Chiskiack, as about twelve miles.
__________________________________________________ __
*In 1661 Anna Bernard, "now of Purton, in Petsoe Parish, in the county of
Gloster, in Virginia, widdow," makes a deed. She was the wife of Richard
Bernard, of Petsoe, Bucks. Her maiden name was Corderoy. Her daughter
Anne married John Smith, who came into possession of the place. (See
Bernard Family, Quarterly, V., p. 62.) In 1849, there was a renewal grant of
Portan (Purton) to William John Clarke, in which it was said to consist of
1,665 acres, and to be bounded by Broad Creek, York River, and Tanks
Poropotank Creek, or Adams Creek.
----------
4 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE QUARTERLY.
Another chart given by Dr. Brown, found in the Spanish archives, and
supposed to have been the one sent to England in 1608, with Smith's "News
from Virginia," tells the same tale. At about eleven miles from West Point and
twelve miles from Chiskiack, appears on a bay "Werowocomoco." Below
Werowocomoco, on the same side of the river are two towns, Cappahowsack
and Cantaunteck. There is at this day a wharf on the north side of York river
called Cappahosick (Cappahowsack), evidently marking the old Indian
district of that name; and this district, as shown on the charts, lay between
Werowocomoco and Timberneck Creek. The wharf is at least seven miles
above Timberneck Creek. It was this country of Cappahosic that Powhatan
offered to give Smith "for two great guns and a grindstone." Werowocomoco
was above it.
As to the deposit of oyster shells at Shelly and Timberneck, that proves only
that Indians lived in the neighborhood, but it does not prove that the particular
town called "Werowocomoco" was situated there. On the chart last mentioned
appears, just above Tindall's Point (now Gloucester Point), an Indian town
called Cantaunteck.
As to the sandstone chimney, there is absolutely nothing but its name
connecting it with "Powhatan," and in regard to this name there is nothing to
show when it began to attach to the chimney. This stone, which is full of fossil
remains, is undoubtedly of vast age, but it does not follow that structures
composed of it are ancient. The church at Yorktown, built in 1697, is composed
of the same kind of sandstone, and, as the church stood after the fire of 1814,
with all the woodwork destroyed, it must have looked a thousand years old. The
records show that from a very early date stone houses and stone chimneys
were not uncommon in Virginia.*
Nothing then remains of Mr. Howe's and Mr. Campbell's surmises as to the
location of Werwocomoco. That location is fixed by the charts and contemporary
authority indisputably at Portan Bay, on the north side of York River.
__________________________________________________ _____
* When I last visited the stone chimney, I found it prostrate and in ruins. Its
vast fireplace used to serve the purposes of a modern outhouse, which was
built on to it."
================================================== ===
Neat huh? Blessings~~~Laurie