After 128 days at sea, the founders of Jamestown — the first permanent English settlement in the New World — arrived at Cape Henry, Virginia, on April 26, 1607, at four o'clock in the morning. On this windswept shore, the grateful settlers raised a "large wooden cross" and thanked God for their safe arrival. Jamestown was selected as their settlement site on May 14.
These were dark and daring days. The disease-infested swamps, together with skirmishes with Native Americans, claimed many lives. Food was scarce. Several hundred colonists came to Virginia in the first six years of her founding, and at one point only sixty persons survived.
On June 7, 1610, it was decided to abandon the settlement. The colonists sailed down the James River once again to challenge the Atlantic. However, the next morning, Sir Thomas Gates, lieutenant governor of the colony, received word that Lord De la Warr had arrived at Point Comfort with settlers and supplies. It is said that Lieutenant Governor Gates returned to the empty fort and, falling on his knees, thanked God the colony had been saved.
While visiting Jamestown, our family boarded authentic reproductions of the three ships that made the crossing. The smallest vessel, the Discovery, displaced about twenty tons of water and measured 50 feet 2 1 /4 inches from stem to stern. We were shocked to find it did not have full headroom and the rough "below" was partitioned for four bunks. Yet the Discovery brought over twelve passengers and a crew of nine.
An inadvertent remark made by a tourist in our party lingers in my mind: "You certainly would have to believe in something, wouldn't you, to come across in this thing?"
"Yes," I replied, "you surely would. And they did."

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