Some Notes On Shipbuilding and
Shipping In Colonial Virginia

AS CONCERNING SHIPS

It is that which everyone knoweth and can say

(From The Trades Increase, London, 1615)

SHIPBUILDING AND SHIPPING

The Dugout Canoe

Various types of watercraft used in Colonial Virginia have been mentioned in the records. The dugout canoe of the Indians was found by the settlers upon arrival, and was one of the chief means of transportation until the colony was firmly established. It is of great importance in the history of transportation from its use in pre-history to its use in the world today. From the dugout have come the piragua, Rose's tobacco boat, and the Chesapeake Bay canoe and bugeye as we see them today.

The first boats in use by the colony in addition to the Indian canoe were ships' boats—barges, long-boats, and others. A shallop brought over in sections was fitted together and used in the first explorations. As the years went by, however, "almost every planter, great and small, had a boat of one kind or another. Canoes, bateaux, punts, piraguas, shallops, flats, pinnaces, sloops, appear with monotonous regularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth century records of Virginia and Maryland."

Little is known about the construction of boats in the colony except the log canoe. A long and thick tree was chosen according to the size of the boat desired, and a fire made on the ground around its base. The fire was kept burning until the tree had fallen. Then burning off the top and boughs, the trunk was raised upon poles laid over crosswise on forked posts so as to work at a comfortable height. The bark was removed with shells; gum and rosin spread on the upper side to the length desired and set on fire. By alternately burning and scraping, the log was hollowed out to the desired depth and width. The ends were scraped off and rounded for smooth navigating.

Captain John Smith, who had a number of occasions to use the canoe, wrote that some were an elne deep (forty-five inches), and forty or fifty feet in length; some would bear forty men, but the most ordinary were smaller and carried ten, twenty, or thirty men. "Instead of oars, they use paddles or sticks with which they will row faster than our barges." Additional space and graceful lines in the canoes were secured by spreading the sides. To do this, the hollowed log was filled with water and heated by dropping in hot stones until the wood became soft enough to bend into the desired shape by forcing the sides apart with sticks of different lengths and allowed to harden.

The tools with which the Indians built their boats and used for other purposes, were tomahawks of stone sharpened at one end or both, or one end was rounded off for use as a hammer. A circular indentation was made in the center to secure the tomahawk to the handle. Another method of fitting the stone tomahawk to a handle was to cut off the head of a young tree, and as if to graft it, a notch was made into which the head of the hatchet was inserted. After some time, the tree by growing together kept the hatchet so fixed that it could not come out. Then the tree was cut to such a length as to make a good handle. Another method in use was that of binding the stones to the ends of sticks and gluing them there with rosin.

Some colonists did not hesitate to take the canoes from the Indians, which they may or may not have returned. On one occasion the King of Rappahanna demanded the return of a canoe, which was restored. Among the first laws of the General Assembly was that for the protection of the Indians, enacted in August, 1619: "He that shall take away by violence or stealth any canoe or other things from the Indians, shall make valuable restitution to the said Indians, and shall forfeit, if he be a freeholder, five pounds; if a servant, forty shillings or endure a whipping."

A story of an Indian and his canoe was told by John Pory, Secretary of Virginia, after he had visited the Eastern Shore. "Wamanato, a friendly Indian, presented me with twelve bever skins and a canow which I requited with such things to his content, that he promised to keep them whilst he lived, and berie them with him being dead."

Several writers of boatbuilding have expressed the thought that the evolution of the Chesapeake Bay canoe and the Chesapeake Bay bugeye from the Indian dugout canoe was one of the most interesting developments in the history of shipbuilding. M. V. Brewington, in his Chesapeake Bay: A Pictorial Maritime History, says of this development: "The white man's superior knowledge of small craft soon indicated changes which would improve the canoe: sharp ends would make her easier to propel and more seaworthy; broader beam and a keel would increase stability; sail would lessen the work of getting from place to place. Sharpening the bow and stern was a simple matter; the increased beam was difficult because no single tree could provide the needed width. In time, the settler learned to join two or more trees together to give the beam desired. He learned how to add topsides, first of hewn logs, later of sawed plank. A keel was added and a sailing rig. After the centerboard was invented, it took the place of a keel…."

"But the culmination of the simple, single log, trough-shaped Indian dugout was the bugeye, a complex vessel as much as eighty-five feet in length. There was an intermediate step between the canoe and the bugeye, the brogan, a large canoe, partially decked, with a cuddy forward in which a couple of men could sleep and cook…. The earliest known use of the name "bugeye" was in 1868, but doubtless the word was not coined upon the first appearance of the vessel itself…. In essence the bugeye was a large canoe, fully decked, with a fixed rig following that of the brogan. There were full accommodations for the crew which, because the vessel was built for oyster dredging, needed to be comparatively large…. Throughout the course of development from canoe to bugeye, the original dugout log bottom was always apparent in this most truly American craft."

Virginia-Built Pinnaces

The smallest of the three vessels that reached Virginia in April, 1607, was the little pinnace Discovery, a favorite type of small vessel in that period. The first English vessel known to have been built in the New World was a pinnace. A colonizing expedition to Raleigh's colony on Roanoke Island left Plymouth, England, on April 9, 1585, with a fleet of five vessels and two pinnaces attached as tenders. A storm sank the tender to the Tiger, Sir Richard Grenville's flagship. On the 15th of May, the fleet came to anchor in the Bay of Mosquetal (Mosquito), and a landing was made at St. John on the Island of Puerto Rico. Here an encampment was made to give the men time to refresh themselves and to build a new pinnace for the Tiger. A forge was set up to make the nails, and trees were cut and hauled to camp on a low four-wheeled truck for the boat's timber. The ship's carpenters made speedy headway, launching and rigging the pinnace in ten days. They set sail from St. John on the 29th of May, the new pinnace carrying twenty men and, on the 27th of July, anchored at Hatoraske on the way to Roanoke.

The second English vessel known to have been built in North America was also a pinnace. The members of the second colony of Virginia left Plymouth, England, on the last day of May, 1607, under command of Captain George Popham, and located at "Sagadahoc in Virginia" at the mouth of the Kennebec River. There they set up fortifications which they called Fort St. George. After finishing the fort, "the carpenter framed a pretty pinnace of about thirty tons which they called Virginia, the shipwright being one Digby of London." This little vessel is known to have made two voyages across the Atlantic.

On June 7, 1609, a fleet of seven ships and two pinnaces left Plymouth, England, for Jamestown. After a few days out, one of the pinnaces returned to England, but the other, the little Virginia, remained with the fleet as the tender to the flagship Sea Venture. Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant Governor under Lord De La Warr, and Sir George Somers, Admiral of the fleet, embarked on the Sea Venture, commanded by Captain Christopher Newport, Vice Admiral. These three men were leaders of the expedition and in order to avoid any dispute as to precedence, they agreed—very unwisely, it was disclosed—to sail on the same ship "with several commissions sealed, successively to take place one after another, considering the uncertainty of human life."

Wreck of the Sea Venture

On July 28, a violent storm arose which separated the Sea Venture from the rest of the fleet. This "dreadful tempest" was the tail of a West Indies hurricane and lasted four days and nights. An account of it written in 1610, by William Strachey, secretary to Lord De La Warr, and a passenger on the ship, is said to be one of the finest descriptions of a storm in all literature, and led to the writing of The Tempest by Shakespeare. The letter was written to a person unknown, addressed as "Excellent Lady." Some excerpts are given herewith.

The storm drove the ship toward the dangerous and dreaded islands of Bermuda. Nearing the shore, the ship was caught between rocks as in a vise and held there while all the one hundred and fifty persons reached the shore in safety. As soon as they were conveniently settled, after the landing, the long boat was fitted up in the fashion of a pinnace with a little deck made of the hatches of the wrecked ship, so close that no water could enter, and with a crew of six sailors, using sails and oars, Thomas Whittingham, the cape merchant, and Henry Ravens, the master's mate, as pilot, the boat sailed for Virginia. It was hoped, when news reached Jamestown of the safe landing of the passengers from the wrecked Sea Venture on Bermuda, that a ship or pinnace from the fleet in Virginia would be sent to take them home, but the long boat was never heard from again.

Building the Deliverance and the Patience

While waiting for help from Virginia, Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates decided to build a pinnace, in case of need. The work was put in charge of Richard Frobisher, an experienced shipwright. The only wood on the island that could be used for timber was cedar and that was rather poor, being too brittle for making good planks. The pinnace's beams were all of oak from the wrecked ship, as were some planks in her bow, all the rest was of cedar. The keel was laid on the 28th of August, 1609, and on the 26th of February, calking had begun. Old cables that had been preserved furnished the oakum. One barrel of pitch and another of tar had been saved. Lime was made of wilk shells and a hard white stone, which were burned in a kiln, slaked with fresh water, and tempered with tortoise oil. She was forty feet long at the keel, nineteen feet broad at the beam, had a six-foot floor, her rake forward being fourteen feet, her rake aft from the top of her post (which was twelve feet long) was three feet; she was eight feet deep under her beam, four feet and a half between decks, with a rising of half a foot more under her forecastle, the purpose being to scour the deck with small shot if an enemy should come aboard. She had a fall of eighteen inches aft to make her steerage and her great cabin larger; her steerage was five feet long and six feet high with a closed gallery right aft, having a window on each side, and two right aft. She was of some eighty tons burden.

On the 30th of March, the pinnace was launched, unrigged, and towed to "a little round island" nearer the ponds and wells of fresh water, with easier access to the sea, the channel there being deep enough to float her when masts, sails and all her trim had been placed on her. "When she began to swim (upon her launching) our Governor called her The Deliverance."

Late in November, and still with no word from Virginia, Sir George Somers became convinced that the pinnace which Frobisher was building would not be sufficient to transport all the men, women, and children from Bermuda to Virginia. He consulted with Sir Thomas Gates, the Governor, who approved his plan of building another pinnace. He would take two carpenters and twenty men with him to the main island where with instruction from Frobisher, "he would quickly frame up another little bark, for the better sitting and convenience of our people." The Governor granted him all the things he desired, all such tools and instruments, and twenty of the ablest and stoutest men of the company to hew planks and square timber. The keel laid was twenty-nine feet in length, the beam fifteen feet and a half; she was eight feet deep and drew six feet of water, and was of thirty tons capacity. Sir George Somers launched her on the last day of April, giving her the name of Patience, and brought her from the building bay in the main island, into the channel where the Deliverance was moored.

After nine months on the islands, these fearless and undaunted men, with a stout determination to finish the voyage they had begun nine months before, set sail in the two pinnaces on May 10, 1610, and after eleven days, arrived at Point Comfort. "On the three and twentieth day of May, we cast our anchor before Jamestown."

Boatbuilding Before 1612

The few available records of early boatbuilding in the Virginia colony differ so materially that one cannot make a statement as to number or kind of vessels with any degree of accuracy. That the first vessel constructed in Virginia was built earlier than the year 1611, and was of twelve or thirteen tons capacity, seems to be an accepted fact as given in the Spaniard Molina's Report of a Voyage to Virginia in 1611. The report also referred to a galley of twenty-five benches being built there.

In his Short Relation to the Council of the Virginia Company in June, 1611, Lord De La Warr spoke regretfully of the fact that the three forts he had erected near Point Comfort were not properly manned because of a lack of boats, there being but two, and one barge in all the colony. The fishing, too, had been hindered because of this shortage. No mention was made of the galley that was said to have been in the process of construction.

Argall's Shipyard at Point Comfort

In a letter to Nicholas Hawes, written in June, 1613, Samuel Argall (later Sir Samuel Argall) tells of a voyage to Virginia in 1612, and some of his activities there. On the 17th of September, he arrived at Point Comfort with sixty-two men on the ship Treasurer, his course being fifty leagues northward of the Azores. From the day of his arrival until the first of November, he spent the time in helping to repair such ships and boats as he found there "decayed for lack of pitch and tarre." About the first of November, he carried Sir Thomas Dale in the Deliverance to Sir Thomas Smith's Island to have his opinion about inhabiting it. They found an abundance of fish there, "very great cod" which they caught in water five fathom deep. They planned to get a great quantity in the summer of 1613, and hoped to find safe passage there for boats and barges by "a cut out of the bottom of our bay into De La Warr Bay." This is an early mention of the need for a canal connecting these two bays. That the Sir Thomas Smith's Island referred to was not the island known by that name lying near Cape Charles is evident from the reference to large cod fish caught there, and the desire for a passage between the bays for a shorter route.

Argall sailed from Point Comfort on the first of December and entered Pembroke, now Rappahannock, River where he met the king of Pastancie, who told him the Indians were his very great friends and had a good store of corn for him, as they had provided the year before. He carried his ship to the king's town and there built a stout shallop to take the corn aboard. After concluding a peace with other divers Indian lords, and giving and taking hostages, Argall hastened to Jamestown with 1100 bushels of corn, which he delivered to the storehouses there, besides the 300 bushels he retained for the use of his own company. As soon as he had unloaded the corn, Argall set his men to work felling timber and hewing boards with which to build a "frigat." He left this vessel half finished in the hands of his carpenters at Point Comfort in order to make another voyage to Pembroke River, and so discovered the head of it. Upon learning that Pocahontas was with the King of Patowomack, he devised a stratagem by which she was captured. Pocahontas was taken to Jamestown and delivered to the protection of Sir Thomas Gates, who hastened to conclude with Powhatan, her father, a peace based upon the terms demanded by Argall. Argall returned to Point Comfort and "went forward with his frigat and finished her." He sent a "ginge" of men with her to Cape Charles, to get fish and transport them to "Henries Town" (Henrico). Another gang was employed to fell timber and cleave planks to build a fishing boat. Argall himself, with a third gang, left in the shallop on the first day of May to explore the east side of the Bay. Having explored along the shore for some forty leagues northward, he returned on the 12th of May, fitted his ship and built a fishing boat, and made ready to take the first opportunity for a fishing voyage.

Other Voyages of Argall

Samuel Argall is said to have achieved lasting fame as one of England's maritime pioneers by establishing a shorter route to Virginia from England in 1609, although Batholomew Gosnold took that route in 1602, and Martin Pring did so in 1603. The usual course led by way of the Canaries to the Island of Puerto Rico in the West Indies, the route of Columbus, a long, circuitous pathway exposed to pirates and interference from Spain. Argall made the round trip by the shorter route in five months. However, the shorter route did not supplant entirely the longer southern route for several decades.

Argall accompanied Lord De La Warr to Virginia in 1610, to point out the northern route. While in Virginia, he was sent with Sir George Somers to Bermuda with two pinnaces to get a supply of hogs and other provisions for the colony. In a storm, Argall lost sight of Sir George's pinnace and failed to locate Bermuda; so he changed his course toward the north and went to Sagadahoc and Cape Cod where he procured a large cargo of fish, which he brought to Jamestown. Sir George Somers reached Bermuda, but died there on November 9, 1610. Argall was then sent by Lord De La Warr to the river Patawomeke to trade with the Indians for corn, where he rescued the English boy, Henry Spelman, who had been living with the Indians. Through Spelman's influence, the Indians "fraughted his ship with corn."

Soon after June 28, 1613, Argall sailed from Virginia on his "fishing voyage" in a well-armoured English man-of-war. His object was the French colony of Jesuits at Mt. Desert, now in Maine, but at that time within the bounds of Virginia. He attacked the buildings and returned with the priests late in July. He was sent back by Gates to destroy the buildings and fortifications there and at St. Croix and Port Royal. This was done and he arrived back at Jamestown, about the first of December. On this voyage, he stopped at New Netherlands, on the Hudson, and forced the colonists there to submit to the crown of England.

Shipbuilding on Plantations

The tracts of land or plantations occupied by individual settlers of the colony were very few until after the "starving time" in 1610. When the colony had been reorganized by Lord De La Warr and Sir Thomas Gates, and something like peace existed with the Indians, more land patents were issued year after year. A list of land owners, in 1625, in the records of the Company, shows nearly two hundred persons owning plots of land varying in size from forty acres to the thirty-seven hundred acres of Sir George Yeardley's plantation at Hungar's river on the Eastern Shore.

In A Perfect Description of Virginia by an unnamed writer in 1648, it is stated that there were in the colony "pinnaces, barks, great and small boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon the rivers' sides and up little creeks and but a small way into the land." Every planter must have had a boat of some kind. Neighborly communication had to be maintained, religious services attended, fishing and oystering to be done, crops of tobacco transferred to the ships anchored out in the channel, and cargoes of goods taken from the ships to the warehouses. The planter navigated the boat himself unless he could provide a slave or an indentured servant.

Most of the shipbuilding done on the plantations was done by ship carpenters or men trained by them. The shipyards were very simple affairs, the essentials being a plot of ground on the bank of a stream with water deep enough to float the vessel and near a supply of suitable timber. Later would be added, perhaps, a small pier to which the boat could be attached, and a small building or shed for the protection of tools.

A visiting ship in need of repair would seek some convenient place on the river and the hospitality of the neighboring planter. An instance is that of Captain Thomas Dermer from Monhegan, North Virginia, now in Maine, who arrived at the colony in September, 1619, in an open pinnace of five tons. He had met Captain Ward several weeks earlier at a place called "St. James his Isles," and there had put most of his provisions on board the Sampson, Captain Ward's boat. Of his arrival in Virginia, he wrote to Samuel Purchas as follows: "After a little refreshing, we recovered up the river to James Citie and from thence to Captain Ward his plantation, where immediately we fell to hewing boards for a close deck." He and his men soon fell sick with malaria and "were sore shaken with burning fever." As their recovery was slow and winter had overtaken them, Dermer decided to wait until spring before sailing north. Captain John Ward had arrived in Virginia during the previous April and was already a member of the House of Burgesses.

Some of the visitors did their shipbuilding more quickly. A Captain Thomas Young arrived in the colony with two ships on July 3, 1634, and by July 14, was reported by Governor Harvey to have built two pinnaces, and that he would be gone in two more days.

Some planters on the larger plantations continued to build their own ships even after public shipyards had been established in seaport towns. Flowerdieu Hundred on the James River was a prosperous plantation, where many vessels were built. It had its own wharf where large ships could be moored for loading.

Some shipbuilding at Westover on the James River is recorded in the diary of William Byrd II, who, after the death of his father in 1704, became owner of the plantation.

In July 1709, Byrd wrote: "I sent the boatmaker to Falling Creek to build me a little boat for my sea sloop." Two days later he wrote: "I sent Tom to Williamsburg for John B-r-d to work on my sloop." Later in the month, he noted that John B-r-d had come in the night to work on his sloop. In November, he wrote: "In the afternoon we paid a visit to Mr. Hamilton who lives across the creek. We walked about his plantation and saw a pretty shallop he was building." In August, 1710, he wrote that he had taken a walk to see the boatbuilder at work. On August 9, he wrote that he had paid the builder of his sloop sixty pounds, which was twenty pounds more than he had agreed for. Later in the year, he noted that his sloop had gone down to the shipyard at Swinyards.

Byrd acquired a new shipwright who came from England on the ship Betty in 1711. In March, he wrote that the new shipwright was offended because he had been given corn pone instead of English bread for breakfast. He had taken his horse and ridden away without a word. However, he reported later that the shipwright had returned. On May 15, 1712, Byrd reported that he had engaged Mr. T-r-t-n to build him a sloop next year. Several years later, he recorded the loss of his great flat boat, but it was found by a man at Swinyards. Swinyards was a place for public warehouses and a shipyard, located on the north bank of the James River, a short distance below Westover, opposite Windmill Point.

At Berkeley, a neighboring plantation on the James River, owned by Benjamin Harrison, there were extensive merchant mills and a large shipyard where vessels were built for the plantation. On October 20, 1768, there appeared a for-sale advertisement in the Virginia Gazette: "A double decked vessel of 110 tons on the stocks at Berkeley Shipyard, built to carry a great burden, and esteemed a very fine vessel." Two years later, John Hatley Norton and a Mr. Coutts were negotiating with Colonel Harrison for the purchase of the ship Botetourt built there for which they offered 1100 pounds sterling. "She is as stout a ship as was ever built in America, and we expect will carry 380 hogsheads of tobacco," wrote Mr. Norton.

The Virginia Company's Interest in Boatbuilding

When Sir Thomas Smith ended his term as Treasurer of the Company in 1619, among many other charges brought against him by the opposing faction, it was declared there was left only one old frigate belonging to Somers' Isles, one shallop, one ship's boat, and two small boats belonging to private persons. In his defense, Smith referred to the 150 men he had sent to Virginia to set up iron works; the making of cordage, pitch, tar, pot and soap-ashes from material at hand; the cutting of timber and masts; and how he had sent men to erect sawmills for cutting planks for building houses and ships. In justification of Smith and himself, Robert Johnson, alderman, a leader during Smith's administration, drew up an account in which he stated among other evidences of prosperity that barks, pinnaces, shallops, barges, and other boats had been built in the colony; but this statement was not accepted as fact.

Sir Edwin Sandys succeeded Smith as Treasurer; and in the Earl of Southampton's administration in 1621, a list of improvements was drawn up, among which it was claimed that the number of boats was ten times multiplied and that there were four ships owned by the colony. A reply to this may be taken from An Answer to a Declaration of the Present State of Virginia in May, 1623, in which it was declared that the new administration was many degrees behind the old government, for in those times there were built boats of all sorts, barges, pinnaces, frigates, hoyes, shallops and the like.

The great massacre in March, 1622, put an immediate check on any progress in boatbuilding in the colony. For a time the settlers were panic stricken, and there was much talk of assembling all the remaining settlers on the Eastern Shore, but happily, wiser counsel prevailed. That the few boatwrights then in the colony perished is considered probable from the fact that none could be found to repair a boat that had drifted ashore at Elizabeth City after the massacre. When writing about the Indian massacre, Captain John Smith, in his General History of Virginia, in a bitter outburst, said: "Yea, they borrowed our boats to transport themselves over the river to consult on the develish murder that insued and of our utter extirpation." In Sir Francis Wyatt's commission to Sir George Yeardley on September 10, 1622, to attack the Indians in punishment for the massacre, he ordered the use of "such ships, barks, and boats as are now riding in this river as transports." The ships and barks may well have been English vessels.

When Virginia became a Crown Colony in 1624, the reports on the state of the colony named thirty-eight boats, two shallops, one bark, one skiff, and one canoe, but this was considered inaccurate as many plantations did not report their vessels.

Shipwrights and Ship-carpenters

Every colonizing expedition to the New World had been deeply impressed by the wealth of shipbuilding materials to be found. The English were particularly enthusiastic, since the scarcity of timber in England was very serious. Here, in Virginia, were to be found all that was needed for building ships: "oakes there are as faire, straight and tall and as good timber as any can be found, a great store, in some places very great. Walnut trees very many, excellent faire timber above four-score foot, straight without a bough." The report went on in praise of the tall pine trees fit for the tallest masts, and the kinds of woods for making small boats: mulberry, sassafras, and cedar. Other materials were not wanting: iron ore, pitch, tar, rosin, and flax for making rope. The colonists saw in this wealth of materials a new source of supply at one-half of the previous cost. Both England and Holland had been purchasing their shipbuilding materials from Poland and Prussia at a cost of a million pounds sterling annually. One enthusiastic Englishman, when he heard these reports, wrote: "We shall fell our timber, saw our planks, and quickly make good shipping there, and shall return thence with good employment, an hundred sayle of ships yearly."

When Captain Newport returned to England in June, 1607, he carried with him a request, from the colonists to the company, for carpenters to build houses, and shipwrights to build boats. Upon Newport's return in 1608, he brought with him a number of Poles and Dutchmen to erect sawmills for the production of boards for houses and boats. This did not prove to be a successful venture. Further attempts were made in 1619, and later, to establish sawmills in the colony. Instructions sent to Governor Wyatt, in 1621, bade him "to take care of the Dutch sent to build sawmills, and seat them at the Falls, that they may bring their timber by the current of the water." Repeated appeals had been made to the Company for ship-carpenters without success. In January, 1621, the Governor and Council joined in an appeal for workmen to build vessels, of various kinds, for the use of the people in making discoveries, in trading with their neighbors, and in transporting themselves and goods from one place to another. In reply, a letter from the Company, in August, gave the encouraging news, that in the spring, the Company would send an excellent shipwright with thirty or forty carpenters. In preparation, they were advised to fell a large number of black oak trees, and bark as many others. The Company expected the sawmill to provide the planks and suggested a place near the sawmill and ironworks for the shipyard. A thousand pounds had been underwritten by private persons for sending the shipwrights and carpenters who were promised by the end of April at the latest.

The next spring, in May, the Council received notice that sailing on the ship Abigail were Captain Thomas Barwick and twenty-five other persons for building boats, ships and pinnaces. They were to be established together in an area of at least twelve hundred acres, and were to be employed only in the trade for which they were sent. Four of the Company's oxen were to be assigned to them for use in hauling the timber.

Captain Barwick and his men settled in Jamestown. At first they were employed in building houses for themselves and afterward began to build shallops, the most convenient and satisfactory vessels, for transporting tobacco to the large ships. Soon several of the men were ill, from malaria it was thought, and by the end of the year many of them had died. A letter from George Sandys, in March, to Deputy Treasurer Ferrar, sent by the ship Hopewell, told the discouraging news. He deplored the failure of the shipbuilding project caused by the death of Captain Barwick and many of his shipbuilders, "wherein if you blame us, you must blame the hand of God." He attributed the pestilent fever that raged in the colony to the infected people that came over in the Abigail, "who were poisened with stinking beer, all falling sick and many dying, everywhere dispersing the contagion." Not only the shipbuilders, but almost all the passengers of the Abigail, died immediately, upon their landing. The contagion even spread to the cattle and other domestic animals, it was said.

On March 31, 1626, Thomas Munn (?) came before the Council and the General Court of Virginia and swore that he was at the making of a small shallop, by direction of Captain Barwick, and that afterward this boat was sold to Captain William Eppes, for two hundred pounds of tobacco, and "as yet the debt is not satisfied unto any man." Upon the death of Captain Barwick, Munn had delivered to George Sandys, Treasurer, a list of debts owing, and this debt had never been paid.

Adam Dixon, who came over in the Margaret and John, was sent by the Company as a master calker of ships and boats. He was living at Pashbehays, near Jamestown, in 1624. As the years went by, a number of shipwrights came to the colony from time to time, and were engaged in private shipyards on plantations, or set up shipyards of their own. Orphan boys were sometimes apprenticed to these shipbuilders until they reached the age of twenty-one. They were expected to be taught to read, write and cipher in addition to learning the trade of ship-carpenter.

Many of the shipwrights who came to Virginia in the seventeenth century, became land owners, some of them owning large tracts of land, as shown by county records, especially in the Tidewater area. In Lancaster on the Rappahannock River, John Meredith, a shipwright, obtained, by patent, a tract of fifty acres. His sale of 600 acres is recorded, also a contract to build a sloop and a small boat, in payment of a debt of 47,300 pounds of tobacco.

In Rappahannock County records, we find shipwright Simon Miller, a noted shipbuilder, who owned a tract of 125 acres; and John Griffin, a shipwright, who, in 1684, recorded a deed to Colonel Cadwalader Jones for a bark of fifty odd tons, for the consideration of fifty pounds sterling.

The first John Madison of Virginia, great-great-grandfather of President James Madison, acquired considerable land in Virginia by the importation of immigrants; in a land patent dated 1682, he called himself a ship-carpenter. At this time, good ships of three hundred tons and over were being built in Virginia, and probably John Madison aided in the construction of one or more of these. It is evident that many of the shipwrights, who came to Virginia from England, found the life of a planter more desirable than that of a shipbuilder, while some of them combined the two occupations.

Controversies Over Boats

The Council and General Court of Virginia were called upon occasionally to settle controversies over vessels of various kinds and to hear reports concerning others. The following reports are from the records of the Court for 1622 to 1632.

At an early date, Robert Poole reported a trading voyage with the Indians for Mr. "Treasurer," in the pinnace Elizabeth, during which he gave ten arms length of blue beads for one tub of corn and over, and thirteen arms length for another tub. Anne Cooper complained that her late husband, Thomas Harrison, loaned a shallop to Lieutenant George Harrison, late deceased. It was ordered by the Court that she should receive one hundred pounds of merchantable tobacco from George Harrison's estate.

An argument between John Utie and Bryan Caught resulted in the order that the latter should build Utie a shallop eighteen feet, six inches keel; six feet, six inches breadth; with masts, oars, yard and rudder, and to find the 1100 nails and six score "ruff and clench" desired. Utie was to pay Bryan for building the shallop six score pound weight of tobacco, and to furnish the help of a boy and the boy's diet. Also, he was to pay Bryan six score pounds of tobacco for a boat previously built for him.

Captain Francis West, a member of the Council, desired that he be given the use of the Spanish frigate with all her tackle, apparel, munitions, masts, sails, yards, etc., that had been captured by John Powell, with a shallop built for that purpose, on an expedition to the West Indies in the man-of-war, Black Bess. He was required to pay 1200 pounds of tobacco to the captain and men.

In trading for corn for Southampton Hundred, John Powntis was allowed a barrel of the corn for the use of his pinnace.

Mr. Proctor had to pay Mr. Perry fifty pounds of tobacco for splitting Perry's shallop. Later, a shallop, which Edmund Barker sold to Mr. Rastall's men, was ordered returned to Mr. Perry, and Edmund Barker to be paid fifty pounds of tobacco for mending the shallop. To settle a charge against Thomas Westone by several men, he was ordered to appear before the Governor with his pinnace. At a later meeting, Thomas Ramshee swore that Westone was owner of the ship Sparrow and "did set her out of his own charge, from London to Virginia." This was an early seagoing vessel of a colonist, but whether built in Virginia, or purchased, is not stated.

Nicholas Weasell received the most severe penalty, in cases concerning boats, when he was ordered to serve Henry Geny the rest of the year from February, for taking away Geny's boat without leave, "whereupon it was bilged and spoiled."

Captain Claiborne purchased a shallop with appurtenances from Captain John Wilcox who had been "at the plantation called Accomack" since 1621. He paid Wilcox 400 pounds of tobacco for the shallop, and sold it to Thomas Harwood. Captain Wilcox failed to make delivery, and the court ordered the attorney of Captain Wilcox to make satisfaction to Thomas Harwood.

The court was called upon to settle a controversy between Captain William Tucker and Mr. Roland Graine about a boat. A Mrs. Hurte was named as the owner of another ship in the colony, the Truelove, formerly owned by John Cross, deceased in England. A much discussed case was that of William Bentley, on trial for the killing of Thomas Godby, which resulted when Mr. Conge's boat ran ashore at Merry Point, near William Parker's house. While there, Bentley, who had arrived in the boat, got into a quarrel and fight with Godby, and was accused of killing him.

These Court records show that most of the cases concerned vessels built in the colony: boats, pinnaces, and shallops. The ships mentioned were evidently of English make. The shallop was the most popular boat for use in the colony. It was a small boat from sixteen to twenty feet in length, fitted with one or two masts and oars, and suitable for exploring the creeks and rivers, collecting corn from the Indians, and transporting tobacco to waiting ships.

Shipbuilding on the Eastern Shore

The Eastern Shore records are among the earliest in Virginia. Shipbuilding in the early days has been ably discussed by Dr. Susie M. Ames in Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century. In 1630, John Toulson, or Poulson, built a pinnace at Nassawadox in which he had one-half interest. Richard Newport, one of Captain Christopher Newport's sons, while living in Northampton County, bought a shallop from the carpenter, Thomas Savage, for the use of the merchant, Henry Brookes, for which Savage was paid twenty pounds sterling. William Berry, another Eastern Shore carpenter, made an agreement with Philip Taylor, one of William Claiborne's men, during the Kent Island controversy, to make him a boat, twenty by ten feet, provided Taylor furnished the boards for the deck between the forecastle and the cabin. For this, Berry was to receive two cows with calf and four hundred pounds of tobacco. During the dispute over Kent Island, a pinnace, belonging to Captain Claiborne, was taken by the Marylanders.

Obedience Robins, a well-known citizen of the Eastern Shore, acquired from the boatwright, William Stevens, a shallop, twenty-six feet in length, with masts, yards, and oars. He owned a pinnace also, which he had named Accomack. A number of lawsuits on the Eastern Shore in the 1640's, involved boats and ship materials. Philip Taylor was indebted to William Stevens for one house, four days on a shallop, valued at one pound sterling, six gallons of tar, and 1250 nails of various sizes. Payment was ordered made to the overseers of the estate of Daniel Cugley of one small boat, twenty-four yards of canvas, twenty gallons of tar, and ninety ten-grote nails, supplies for making a boat. Another court order concerned the delivery of a boat, and 3500 six-penny nails lent by John Neale. Ambrose Nixon testified that he and his mate had built a boat for Randall Revell. In 1638, two planters of Accomack, Nicholas White and one Barnaby, made voyages to New England in their own vessels. The names of Walter Price and Christopher Stribling shipwrights are listed in the early records of Northampton County.

Encouragement for the Building of Ships

The General Assembly of Virginia encouraged shipbuilding by such laws as those enacted during 1662: "Be it enacted that every one that shall build a small vessel with a deck be allowed, if above twenty and under fifty tons, fifty pounds of tobacco per ton; if above fifty and under one hundred tons, one hundred pounds of tobacco per ton; if above one hundred tons, two hundred pounds per ton. Provided the vessel is not sold except to an inhabitant of this country in three years."

Other encouragement by Virginia to owners of vessels, built by them, was the exemption of the two shillings export duties per hogshead of tobacco; the exemption from castle duties; the reduction to two pence per gallon on imported liquor from the four pence required of foreign vessels; and the exemption from duties imposed on shipmasters on entering and clearing, and for licenses and bond where necessary.

The English government discouraged manufacture in the colonies that would compete with home manufactures, but the building of ships was an exception. England needed ships and granted the colonies the right to build as many as they could. Throughout the whole period of royal government, there were enacted various laws remitting the duties on imports brought in on native ships and remission of tonnage duties. This aroused the resentment of the English shipbuilders, who had endeavored to put a stop to the building of ships of any size in the colonies. They were alarmed, too, at the laws passed in the colonies to encourage shipbuilding and complained that they had been discriminated against. Resolutions were passed by Parliament to investigate such laws framed in the colonies, and a bill, based upon these resolutions was proposed, but never introduced.

However, in 1680, Governor Culpeper was ordered to annul the laws exempting Virginia owners of vessels constructed in the colony from duties on exported tobacco and castle duties. The grounds upon which this order was based were (1) the injustice of granting privileges to Virginia ship owners, not enjoyed by the owners of English vessels, trading in Virginia waters; (2) the success of the navigation laws would be impaired by creating a Virginia fleet, able to transport tobacco, without the assistance of English vessels; and (3) owners of English ships might be tempted to order them as belonging to Virginians. Since the Virginia fleet in 1681, was composed of two ships, as mentioned by John Page, in a petition to Lord Culpeper, the English were thought to be unnecessarily alarmed.

During the 1660's, following the laws of the General Assembly, a number of Virginia built ships were recorded. There was much shipbuilding activity on the Eastern Shore. The mate of the Royal Oake, when caught trading illegally, stated that the owner had another boat in the house of a Mr. Waters, and also had a sloop being built there. About this time, a shipwright agreed to build between May and October, for William Whittington, a sloop of twenty-six feet keel, and breadth in proportion, receiving for his work 4,400 pounds of tobacco. In 1666, John Goddon entered a claim for a vessel of twenty-five tons built for him in Accomack. John Bowdoin built a brigantine which he named Northampton.

The size of the vessels built in Virginia had been increasing steadily. Thomas Ludwell, Secretary of the Colony, reported, in 1655, that there had been built recently, several small vessels which could make voyages along the coast, presumably sloops. Again, in a letter to Lord Arlington, Secretary Ludwell made the following statement: "We have built several vessels to trade with our neighbors, and do hope ere long to build bigger ships and such as may trade with England."

Colonel Cuthbert Potter of Lancaster County, who was sent on a mission to ascertain the truth of the reported Indian depredations in Massachusetts and New York, was an early settler in the colony, and had acquired large land holdings in Middlesex County. About 1660, he removed to Barbadoes in his own sloop, the Hopewell.

In 1665, James Fookes agreed to build for the widow, Mrs. Ann Hack, a sloop that would carry thirty-five hogsheads of tobacco, if Mrs. Hack would supply the plank and a barrel of tar; Fookes agreed to finish the job by the 25th of December. The following summer, at the plantation of Mrs. Hack, Fookes made a formal contract with the brother of Mrs. Hack, Augustine Herrman of Bohemia Manor in Maryland, to build a sloop and have it ready by the following October. Herrman is well-known for his 1673 map of Maryland and Virginia. Twenty years later, the dimensions of the Phenix, another vessel built by Fookes, were given: length of keel, forty feet; breadth, fourteen feet, nine inches inside; depth, eight feet, ten inches.

In the English News Letter of March 12, 1666, was carried an encouraging news item: "A frigate of between thirty and forty [tuns?], built in Virginia, looks so fair, it is believed that in a short time, they will get the art of building as good frigates as there are in England." At that time, a new fort was being erected at Point Comfort, and it was ordered that every ship riding in the James River should send one carpenter with provisions and tools to work on this fort.

In 1667, Mrs. Sarah Whitby, widow of John Whitby, petitioned the King in Council as follows: "The petitioner with other planters in Virginia are owners of the ship America, built in Virginia by Captain Whitby, and pray for a license, for the said vessel with six mariners, to proceed to Virginia." The workmanship of the America and her fine appearance had aroused the interest of the English, and expectations arose that Virginia might soon become skillful in building large vessels.

In a reply by Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, to an inquiry by the Lords Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, in 1671, as to the number of ships that trade yearly with the colony, he answered that there were a number of ships from England and Ireland and a few ketches from New England, but never at one time more than two Virginia-owned vessels, and they not more than twenty tons burden. He stated further that the severe Act of Parliament which excluded the colony from commerce with any other nation, was the reason why "no small or great vessels are built here." But other records of the time contradict Berkeley's statement as to the number and size of vessels built in the colony. In addition to those mentioned above, there is found in the records of York County, an itemized cost of building a sloop, the total amount being 4,467 pounds of tobacco. The various materials were furnished by the owners: Richard Meakins, 950 feet of plank; Mr. Newell, the rigging; Captain Sheppard, the sail; and Mr. Williams, the rudder iron. About four months were required to complete the vessel, charges for food running that length of time, during which a cask of cider was consumed. Some sloops were made large enough to hold as many as fifty hogsheads of tobacco, and could sail outside the coast. The sloop Amy, with fourteen hogsheads of tobacco, sailed from Virginia to London in 1690.

Dr. Lyon G. Tyler in The Cradle of the Republic wrote that as early as 1690, ships of 300 tons were built in Virginia, and trade in the West Indies was conducted in small sloops. Lieutenant John West of the Eastern Shore, stating that he had built a vessel of forty-five tons, decked and fitted for sea, petitioned the court for a certificate to the Assembly as encouragement for so doing. Two other shipwrights, Thomas Fookes and Robert Norton, testified as to the weight of the vessel. West was evidently seeking the subsidy of fifty pounds of tobacco for building a vessel "above twenty and under fifty tons," under the law of 1662.

John West was evidently considered an excellent boatwright and carpenter, for in an indenture of the year 1697, made between him and Robert Glendall, late of Elizabeth City County, West is enjoined by the court to do his utmost to instruct Glendall in sloop and boat building, and in such other carpenter's work as he was "knowing in."

In his testimony before the Board of Trade on September 1, 1697, as to the manufactures in Virginia, Major Wilson stated that very good ships were built in Virginia of 300 tons and upwards; but cordage, iron, and smith's work were "brought thither." During that year, a group of merchants in Bristol, England, had a number of ships constructed in Virginia. They were influenced by the fine quality of timber and the small cost of the work, as compared with the cost of similar work in England. Also, a matter of no small importance, a cargo of tobacco was ready for each completed ship.

The wills of deceased persons sometimes revealed ownership of vessels. Of particular interest is the will of Nathaniel Bacon, Senior, in which he left to his wife and his nephew, Lewis Burwell, "all ships or parts of ships … to me belonging in any part of the world." These were to be disposed of by Abigail, his wife, and the nephew as they saw fit. An inventory of the estate of one Thomas Lloyd of Richmond County, on October 27, 1699, lists one decked sloop on the stocks, unfinished, of about thirty tons; one small open sloop newly launched, not finished, of twenty-five tons; one new flat, one old ditto; one old barge; one parcel of handsaws, etc.

Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Virginia, in answering the inquiries of the Council of Trade and Plantations, the clearing house for colonial affairs, in the year 1698, stated that there were 70,000 inhabitants in Virginia, and the number of vessels reported by the owners were four ships, two barks, four brigantines, and seventeen sloops. His report for the previous year had named eight ships, eleven brigantines, and fifteen sloops that had been built for which carpenters, iron work, rigging, and sails had been brought from England.

Eighteenth Century Shipbuilding

The building of ships, barkentines and sloops in Virginia, during the early years of the eighteenth century, had so increased that the Master Shipbuilders of the River Thames addressed a petition to the King in 1724, stating that by the great number of ships and other vessels lately built, then building, and likely to be built in the colonies, the trade of the petitioners was very much decayed, and great numbers of them for want of work to maintain their families, had of necessity left their native country and gone to America. They felt that not only British trade and navigation had suffered thereby, but danger existed in fitting out the Royal Navy in any extraordinary emergency. This petition applied to the northern colonies particularly, as they were far ahead of Virginia in shipbuilding, but the southern colonies were included. As we have seen, many shipwrights came to Virginia and acquired large tracts of land and became planters.

In the narrative of his travels in Virginia, with some companions early in the eighteenth century, Francis Louis Michel of Berne, Switzerland, related that when he was within fifty miles of the coast, he saw two ships, the larger, one of the most beautiful merchantmen he had ever seen. Because it was built in Virginia, it was named Indian King or Wild King, he did not remember which. Three years before, it had fallen into the hands of pirates, so the narrative related, but had been rescued by the British warship Shoreham, and sixty pirates of all nations taken prisoners, all of whom were hanged in England.

How many vessels were built or repaired at the Point Comfort shipyard is not known. At a meeting of the Council of Virginia in May, 1702, a letter from Captain Moodie stated that he had fitted up a very convenient place at Point Comfort for careening Her Majesty's ships of war, or any other ships that came to the colony; and he proposed that some care be taken and some person appointed to have charge of the situation. This arrangement was confirmed by a letter from Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood to the British Admiralty on October 24, 1710, in which he wrote that for the convenience of careening, there is a place at Point Comfort which, with a small charge, could be fitted up for that purpose; H.M.S. Southampton had careened there, and there may be served the largest ships of war, which Her Majesty will have occasion to send to Virginia as cruisers or convoys. This careening site at Point Comfort provided long-needed facilities for careening vessels for repairs and scraping bottoms. As early as 1633, David Pietersz de Vries from Holland, arrived at Jamestown with a leaky ship, but found no facilities in the colony for careening vessels. He found it necessary to sail to New Netherlands for such repairs. As late as 1700, when the Shoreham, a fifth rate frigate, was the Chesapeake Bay guardship, Captain Passenger, her commander, wrote to Governor Nicholson: "I have only to offer (may your Excellency think convenient) about the latter end of September to careen the Shoreham. She is at present very foul, and the rudder is loose, which I fear before the next summer, may be of dangerous consequences which cannot be removed, without careening or lying ashore, which I presume there is no place in Virginia, that will admit of." It is thought, however, that there must have been careening places in the colony for the smaller vessels, or how else could the pinnaces and sloops have been kept in repair.

Sloops became popular in the eighteenth century, and a number of them were built in Virginia to be disposed of in the West Indies. After the sloop was finished, she received a cargo of tobacco, and vessel and tobacco were sold together. Because of the danger from pirates and Spanish interference, the sloops for the West Indies trade were designed especially for speed and maneuverability. The pilot boat evolved in the colony quite early. An advertisement appeared in the Virginia Gazette, on July 22, 1737, for a pilot boat stolen or gone adrift from York River. The boat was twenty-four feet keel, nine feet beam, with two masts and sails, and was painted red. Another advertisement in September, 1739, concerning a boat stolen from Newport News, on the James River, by one James Hobbs, a carpenter. The boat was about fifteen feet keel, had two masts, and was payed with pitch. It had a new arch thort of black walnut, and a tarpaulin upon the forecastle.

Norfolk became one of the busiest ports in Virginia, both in shipbuilding and ship repair work. A shipyard had been established on the Elizabeth River in 1621 by John Wood and work had been almost continuous, though at times very slow, throughout the seventeenth century. An inventory in 1723, listed one brigantine, three sloops, and three flats owned by Robert Tucker. One of the sloops was forty feet in length and valued at 230 pounds sterling. Captain Samuel Tatum owned the ship Caesar, which was said to be worth 625 pounds sterling, and the sloop Indian Creek valued at twenty-five pounds. William Byrd in his History of the Dividing Line, states that he saw at Norfolk, in 1728, twenty sloops and brigantines. Some of them were quite evidently of English origin. In 1736, the sloop Industry, "lately built in Norfolk," was loaded with tobacco in the James River to take to London.

Captain Goodrich, master of the ship Betty of Liverpool, which was built on the Elizabeth River for the Maryland trade, was permitted by the Council of Virginia, to sail to Liverpool without the payment of the usual port duties. The firm of John Glasford and Company contracted with Smith Sparrows in 1761, for a ship built at Norfolk, sixty feet in length, sixteen feet in the lower hold, and four feet between decks, the price being fifty shillings per ton.

Many of the shipwrights, who came to Virginia and became land owners, settled in Norfolk. That port was especially known for this kind of citizen, ranking next to the merchant in wealth and influence. Among house owners were some ship-carpenters who carried on their trade, receiving for a day's work four shillings and a pint of rum, more wages than the salary of some clergymen. Several shipwrights listed in Lower Norfolk were large property owners. Abraham Elliott owned land both in Virginia and England. One John Ealfridge owned one-half interest in a mill, and acquired a plantation for each of his two sons in addition to his own.

To secure a large sum of money due Robert Cary of London, Theophilus Pugh of Nansemond County mortgaged his lands, slaves, and vessels with all their boats. The vessels were listed as follows: ships, William and Betty, Prosperous Esther; sloops, Little Molly, Little Betty; schooners, Nansemond Frigate, Pugh. If the average planter had owned the equivalent of two ships, two sloops and two schooners, the total number of vessels in Virginia in the middle of the eighteenth century would have far exceeded any inventory reported.

The frame of a snow, which was to have been built by Thomas Rawlings, a ship-carpenter, for Mr. John Hood, merchant of Prince George County, was advertised for sale in 1745. The snow was to have been sixty feet keel; twenty-three feet, eight inches beam; ten feet hold; and four feet between decks. Also advertised for sale about the same time was a schooner, trimmed and well-fitted with sails and rigging to carry fifty hogsheads of tobacco. In March, 1746, the sloop Little Betty, burden fifty tons, was offered for sale with her sails, anchors, furniture, and tackle.

The advertisements of Virginia-built vessels in the 1750's, and in the 1760's, show a steady increase in the size of sloops and ships. The following are mentioned: a brig of eighty tons; several snows, one to carry 250 hogsheads of tobacco; and several schooners. Schooner rigged boats appeared in the colony early in the eighteenth century, and gradually increased in size and importance. During the second half of the eighteenth century, the schooner displaced the sloop as the principal coastwise vessel, and emerged during the Revolution as a distinctive American type. "The most spectacular event in the history of naval architecture in the eighteenth century was the emergence of the Chesapeake Bay clipper-schooner," says Arthur Pierce Middleton.

In April, 1767, John Hatley Norton came from London to be his father's agent with headquarters in Yorktown. He wrote home that his cousins, the Walker Brothers, had a shipyard at Hampton, and were building ships of new white oak, well calculated for the West Indies trade. A letter from John M. Jordon & Company, London, in 1770, reads in part as follows: "Mr. William Acrill desires you will make insurance of his brig, America, Captain William C. Latimer; in case of loss to receive four hundred pounds. She is chartered by a gentleman on the Rappahannock; and is now in Hampton Roads, and will sail tomorrow or next day; and in case she arrives safe, you are to receive her freight, and sell the vessel, provided you can get four hundred pounds for her."

Occasionally, we find an account of the use of a vessel of some kind or other for pleasure. In Fithian's Journal and Letters, the author writes in 1773, that his employer, Mr. Robert Carter of Nomini, prepared for a voyage in his schooner Harriot (named for his daughter), to the Eastern Shore of Maryland for oysters. The schooner was of forty tons burden, thirty-eight feet in length, fourteen feet beam, six feet in depth of hold, carried 1400 bushels of grain, and was valued at forty pounds sterling. Again from the Journal: "From Horn Point, we agreed to ride to one Mr. Camel's, who is Comptroller of the customs here. Before dinner, we borrowed the Comptroller's barge, which is an overgrown canoe, and diverted ourselves in the river which lies fronting his house."