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Contributed by Eliot J Chandler 2007-02-06

Popham, Maine — I could write about my memories as a child during WWII, of sitting on the bank overlooking the South Freeport shipyard, enthralled to see old-time shipbuilders recreating a scene from the 1800s, building wooden ships for the war effort. I could write about my dad, then a Freeport school teacher joining the Coast Guard reserves and reporting for guard duty nights in South Portland to help provide security at the shipyards where they were building those Liberty Ships, the workhorses supplying the war effort in Europe. And yes, when I designed and built the Bounty Taverne in Bangor, I could write about my locating an old timer in Bath, Maine whose father had taught him the art of ship rigging, and who rigged the Bounty for me just as it would have been done in the 1800s.

But instead, I would like to write about that first ship, the pinnace ‘Virginia’, built at Georges Fort in 1607-08 in Popham, Maine, the ship that this coming celebration is honoring, and drawing from information I’ve gleaned over years of searching into the history of this vessel for inclusion in my book, “Ancient Sagadahoc”.

Much of it presently consists of theories which link together the few facts that have survived, facts and theories assembled much like a house of cards, which could collapse if ever a new observation is found to disagree. My research suggests that the idea of building the Virginia, in fact, the financing, planning and supplying of materials for that project was probably Sir George Somers of Dorset. a member of Parliament for Lyme Regis. He was involved in both the Plymouth Company’s attempt to plant a colony in what was to become the Province of Maine, and was also involved in the London Company, preparing to plant a colony on the James River in Virginia. He had located a young shipbuilder named John Digby Jr in Stepney, a section of London, unmarried and willing to move to Maine to build and maintain ships for the Popham colonists. Sir George Somers would have then acquired the ironwork, rigging, sails and outfit, and had them loaded on one of the colonist’s two vessels bound for Maine.

There is a misconception that the vessel in John Hunt’s drawing of Georges Fort, drawn in Oct 8, 1607, was the pinnace Virginia. Digby didn’t even lay the keel for the ship until after that date. Hunt drew the map and then left for England, taking the drawning with him. The vessel in Hunt’s drawing pre-existed the Virginia and is most likely a drawing of President Popham’s pinnace, described as being used on Aug 17 “to search where they might find a fitt place for their plantation.”

William Strachey, in his 1612 manuscript, wrote about the Popham colonists and their adventure on the Kennebec River. He wrote that, “after Captain Davies departure they fully finished the fort, trencht and fortified it with 12 pieces of ordinaunce, …and the Carpenters framed a pretty pinnace of about some 30 tonne, which they called the Virginia, the chief ship wright beinge one Digby of London.” That winter their President died, their warehouse had burned and they had all become quite discouraged. The following year the colonists learned that their chief financier had died back in England and so they decided to abandon the fort and return home with the supply ship and their newly constructed pinnace Virginia. They arrived in Plymouth in the middle of December, 1608.

They were then asked to join the Jamestown Colony and the two Davies, James and Robert, accepted this offer and were asked to command the Virginia. A fleet of nine vessels organized by Somers gathered at Plymouth to transport the newly appointed governor of the Jamestown colony, Sir Thomas Gates, along with five hundred men, women and children, and a great store of supplies to the colony. The Virginia arrived at Jamestown on October 12th with “some 16 proper men more, divers Gentlemen of good meanes, and great parentage,” along with its crew. The pinnace was then put into service, first sailing up and down the coast acquiring corn and supplies from the various Indian villages.

W. H. Rowe, marine author of the book, “Shipbuilding days in Casco Bay” wrote that, “For some twenty years she plied between England and Virginia until, as she returned with a cargo of tobacco, she was wrecked on the Irish coast.” On those voyages transporting tobacco to England, she would return to Jamestown with new colonists and supplies, and it is quite possible that she was involved in transporting kidnapped maidens from the streets of London to the settlement in Virginia.

It seems that the Virginia Company was having great difficulty maintaining an ample population in the colony, with more immigrants dying than were being shipped each year. The company had convinced the City of London to supply young boys, age 12 and over, and maidens, “young and uncorrupt,” in order to make the men in Virginia “more settled and less movable.” The Mayor and Aldermen of London were more than willing to furnish these undesireables, street urchins and waifs, who “doe live idle” on the city streets.

From the records of the Virginia Company of London we read, “In settinge forward pt of his propositions,” he found “the Lord Mayor… as willing to pleasure the Company as he desired,” and will “furnish vs againe with one hundred more… Our desire is that wee may have them of Twelue years olde & vpward with allowance of Three pound a peec for their Transportacon and fforty shillings a peec for their apparrell…”

These children were impressed to be sold in Virginia. For instance, in 1620 the appropriations list read: “500 Tenants att 16 pounds per person, 300 Maids, Boyes and Servants att 61/2 pounds a peec, 200 Kine att 10 pounds the head, 400 Goats att 3 pound 10 shilling the goat, 20 Mares att 15 pound a peec, and 80 Asses att 7 pound 10 shilling a peec.” The asses were valued higher than maidens and boys. In Virginia these maidens were valued at one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco each.

So, if the pinnace Virginia was transporting people and provisions to Jamestown and shipping tobacco back to England as Mr Rowe suggests, then she could very well have been involved in carrying those kidnapped London children to the New World. Rowe concludes that she ended her twenty plus year career against the rocks of Ireland.