Scientists identify early English settlement

An archaeological study and colonial documents indicate that "Henries Towne" has been found.

Construction crews are rebuilding the buildings and fort that made up the colonial village of Henrytowne.
(Joe Fudge, Daily Press)

Fort Story archaeologists and Virginia officials are building an early colonial town site believed to be Henrytowne, which
was founded in 1609 about five miles west of Fort Story in Virginia Beach. Donald Proffett works on the palisade wall.
(Joe Fudge, Daily Press)

FORT STORY -- Army scientists sifting through a 52-year-old archaeological study and a small but compelling stream of early colonial records have identified a site off the Lynnhaven River as one of the earliest English settlements in America.

Lt. Gov. Samuel Argall described the outpost near Cape Henry as "Henries Towne" in a 1613 letter, says Randy Amici, head of the Fort Eustis-based archaeological team that made the announcement Friday. But other accounts from the time suggest that the long-lost site, where a large cache of unusually early European artifacts was recovered in 1955, might have been in existence as early as 1610.

"For the first time, we know that there was an early 17th-century English settlement in the city of Virginia Beach that was contemporaneous with Jamestown - and within the Virginia Company period," said Amici, whose team conducted the work as part of an archaeological survey of Fort Story.

For a Freeper personal note with the area, The area is near Cape Henry and First Landing State Park.

A few years ago I helped a botanist grad student in locating the northernmost point for the plant known as Spanish Moss. I contacted all the federal and state agencies enviromental officers in the area and up the Delmarva penninsula to learn if the plant was known to exixt on their property.

Suprisingly, I recieved several replies and contacted the Virginia State Park That is located at Cape Henry, the very mouth of the Chesapeake bay. I visited the location and tramped around in their back country with a Ranger. I was able to collect several specimens for his study and preservation in a Bromeliad collection in Florida.

The colanists picked the northernmost habitat point for this plant. It is important because Spanish Moss is perhaps the most successful of all plants in extensive habitat. The range extends from the swamps of First Landing State park on Cape Henry continuously to southern Argentina.

The grad student was doing DNA research out of the New York Botanical Garden to determine the difference between the ends of the range. The plant Spanish Moss has the botanical name of Tillandsia usneoides.

Interesting. The Eastern Shore is a marvelous environment for plants (my family has had a nursery there since 1929). This last fall I was visiting and went to a historical site called Furnace Town just a bit south of Ocean City. It was where bog iron was mined and smelted. The bog is the northernmost cypress bog in the US. I believe the southernmost stands of Canadian Hemlock are also on the Eastern Shore.

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