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by Carl Bridenbaugh; 975.542 H2bc; Fil6
page 35 – … When the first settlers moored overnight at Kecoughtan before entering the James River, George Percy tells us that an Indian who had a “garden of Tobacco” generously “distributed some to every one of us.” …
Momentous and Tragic Beginnings
page 40
… Sometime during this period, Rolfe married Jane, the daughter of the Company, a member of the new Council of State. Sometime during this period, Rolfe married Jane, the daughter of Captain William Pierce of Jamestown …
Life and Death at Jamestown
page 45 … Writing about the first settlers, George Percy declared: “Our men were destroyed with cruell diseases, as Swellings, Flixes, Burning fevers, and by Warres (with Indians), and some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of meere famine …
Momentous and Tragic Beginnings
page 78 – John Pory had lived in the village but a short ime but was secretary of the Council; Thomas Pierce acted as sergeant-at-arms for the Assembly, and the Reverend Richard Buck served as chaplain …
… Secretary Pory, having been appointed speaker, sat in front of the Governor with John Twine, the clerk, on one side and Thomas Pierce, the sergeant, on the other… not until 1663 did they divide and sit as two houses.
James Cittie in Virginia
p108-109
… He was succeeded by Lieutenant, later Captain, William Pierce “now of Jamestown.” In view of the disruption caused by the Indian uprising and the demise of the Virginia Company, we may conjecture that Captain Pierce went right ahead to “possess and exercise authority to command, rule, and govern … all the people there resident.” In 1623 he was reported by no less authority than George Sandys to be inferior to none as “an expert in the country.”
There were, by 1614, four principal settlements in the colony: Jamestown, Kecoughtan (Elizabeth City after 1621), Henrico, and Charles City, but none was accorded institutional status until 1618, except the tentative move in that direction with the appoinment of George Percy by Governor Dale. ..
James Cittie in Virginia
page 110 -1623 … In November the Governor advised Captain Pierce that 10 pounds in tobacco and corn should be ‘levied through the Corporation of James City” upon every planter or tradesman over sixteen years old – …
page 126 – … On the other hand, fortune could favor “an honest industrious woman,” such as Mistress Pierce who came over in the Blessing and lived at Jamestown for nearly twenty years (1610-19). She married Captain William Pierce who, in 1623, became lieutenant governor and captain of James City. We learn of her advance in the world from Captain John Smith, whom she encountered on a voyage to London. In his Gerall Historie, he stated the “she hat a Garden at Jamestown,containing three or four acres (outside the village) where in one yeare she hath gathered neere and hundred bushels of excellent figges: and that, of her owne provisions, she can keep a better house in Virginia than heere in London for 3 or 400 pounds a yeare. Yet (she) went thither with little or nothing.”
Mistress Pierce probably rose higher than any other woman resident of early Jamestown, …
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