New named pipe found at Jamestown

History Blog ^ | October 31, 2015

[Brad from Tennessee]

Archaeologists at Historic Jamestown have discovered the tenth Virginia-made pipe with a name inscribed on the stem. It’s the first new named pipe found at the site since 2009, and in contrast to most of the earlier discoveries, the name is complete: William Faldo.

The stockholders of the Virginia Company were expecting to make a quick profit from their investment in the Jamestown settlement, but the struggling colonists could barely keep themselves alive, never mind send back the riches in minerals and trade goods the company had envisioned. They weren’t even self-sufficient, having clashed with the Powhatan tribes weeks after their arrival and being saddled with a surfeit of soft-handed gentlemen rather than farmers and laborers who could have been of practical use.

In January of 1608, eight months after the founding of Jamestown, the Virginia Company sent a supply mission that was woefully short of necessary provisions but long on new colonists. At least this time there were more laborers and tradesmen than gentlemen on board. Pipemaker Robert Cotton was one of them.

Tobacco was introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the 16th century but it was Sir Walter Raleigh who popularized it in England after Ralph Lane, first governor of Virginia, gave him a long-stemmed pipe and Virginia tobacco in 1586. By the time John Rolfe, future husband of Pocahontas, planted Virginia’s first commercial tobacco crop in Jamestown in 1612, smoking was widespread in England. Rolfe’s first crop was sold in London in 1614. Five years later, Jamestown was exporting 10 tons of tobacco to England a year. By 1639 it was 750 tons. . .

[ThomasThomas]

My bologna has a first name and if I had a pipe I would name it bubbles.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think people with English ancestry can be divided into two groups--those who have royal ancestry that can be documented, and those who have royal ancestry that can't be documented.

Each generation further back you have twice as many ancestors (with possible duplications--if two people married who were third cousins they would have some ancestors in common). The royal ancestor might well be the illegitimate son or daughter of a king...but the English monarchy traces its lineage back to William the Conqueror, also known as William the Bastard.