10/25/11 - NNHS Newsletter - Seven Lonely Days

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.”

- Erma Bombeck
(21 Feb 1927 - 22 Apr 1996)

But not until the archaeologists returned for the 2012 season did they finally unearth the complete footprint of the place where the first permanent English settlers in the New World worshiped.

So substantial was the structure and its impact on the surrounding landscape that — like many other discoveries made by the Jamestown Rediscovery team since 1994 — it's rewriting long-held views about the Virginia colonists and life in their pioneering outpost.

'Pretty little chapel'

Though described by colonist William Strachey as "a pretty little chapel," the sprawling 1608 church — at 24-by-64-feet in size — clearly dominated the bustling village constructed inside the walls of the triangular 1.1-acre fort.

Supported by 14 unusually large and deeply buried posts, its tall gable roof reached high above the surrounding structures, Kelso says — and helps explain why a James Fort map secretly sent to the King of Spain depicted the church as a landmark.

"Everyone has speculated that the big 'X' in the middle of the fort marked the spot of the church," Kelso says.

"But not until now could we be certain that it did."

The settlement's armory and guardhouse — known as the "corps du garde" — are among the other parts of the early fort landscape Kelso will explore in his talk.

Though relatively small in size, this recently completed excavation has uncovered the best-preserved building from the fort's earliest period, including rare surviving evidence of mud-and-stud walls and a metalworker's bellows as well as the signatures of every supporting post, an interior partition and three exterior doors.

Tale of two forts

Equally well-preserved is a bombproof structure constructed on top of the colonial outpost in 1861.

Excavated to mark the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War, the squat subterranean earthwork incorporated robust supporting timbers and protective layers of sandbags as well as a wooden-plank floor, Kelso says.

It also was the site of numerous buried artifacts, including a collection of artillery shell fragments that may be linked to a September 1861 test of the armor designed for the famous ironclad warship CSS Virginia — also known as the Merrimack.

Along with such objects as rifle platform spikes, uniform buttons and a piece of James Fort armor recovered by enslaved laborers during the Civil War, the fragments are being prepared for a new Jamestown Archaearium exhibit exploring the links between the English bastion and the Confederate earthwork built over its buried remains 254 years later.

"Fort Pocahontas saved James Fort," curator Bly Straube says, "and these objects help tie the two forts together."

     Thanks, Stacy!

by Reader's Digest Magazine, on Wed Oct 19, 2011 6:36am PDT


If you think people don’t care about etiquette at the table as much as they used to, think again. One soup slurp or tooth pick is all it takes to turn some people off. So to stay on your toes, here is a quick—and necessary—table manners refresher course from Louise Fox of the Etiquette Ladies, Canada’s Etiquette Experts:

* If you are the recipient of a toast, keep your glass at arm’s length—never drink from it. Instead, simply nod your head and graciously say, “Thank you.”
* Never take your cocktail to the dinner table.
* Allow your food to cool on its own—never blow on anything.
* If you wear lipstick, keep it off your plate and napkin by blotting it as soon as you apply it.
* Your napkin is there for you to dab your mouth only. Do not use it to wipe off lipstick or (God forbid) blow your nose.
* Keep your elbows off the table at all times.
* Don’t put your purse, keys, sunglasses, or eyeglasses on the table.
* Take food out of your mouth the way it went in. If a piece of steak fat went into your mouth with a fork, spit it out onto the fork.
* Remove an olive pit with your thumb and index finger.
* Taste everything on your plate before you add salt or pepper.
* Leave your plate where it is when you are finished with your meal—don’t push it away from you.