There have been six churches at Jamestown. The most meaningful were the second, built in 1608 – the site of the 1614 Rolfe/Pocahontas wedding and where graves of four founders were found; the third, built from 1617 to 1619 – the site of the first elected representative legislature in the New World in 1619; the fifth, built sometime in the seventeenth century – its tower is the sole remaining edifice from the colony; and, the sixth, built in as the 1907 Memorial Church, built over and around the sites of the second and third churches.
The second and Memorial churches are located as numbers 18 and 27 on Jamestown Rediscovery’s Map of Discoveries.
With the $50,000 donation announced by Governor Jerry Zillion in the Society’s Fall 2016 Magazine, Jamestown Rediscovery has now expanded its archaeological dig to the interior of the Memorial Church. This is in preparation of the 2019 commemoration of 400th anniversary of the First Assembly, but also to investigate which of our ancestors may be buried there. Two recent news articles report on their progress, one local and the other picked up and published nationally by the Associated Press. There are links within these articles that offer more details of the dig.
The Society requests members and companies interested in supporting this work to make donations to the Society, which will then forward the designated contribution. Donors have three options: (1) by going to the Roll of Honor page on its website, where online, digital contribution instructions are at the bottom of the page, (2) using the form for mailing donations on the same page, or (3) using the Donate Now button on the Society’s Home page and specifying Archaeological Dig Fund in the provided field.
This is summarized on our Jamestown Archeology page, where we have and will include links to published progress reports from time to time. We will post news of any remains that are found in the church excavation.
