Colony Lost And Found Turns Out The Pilgrims Were Tardy by Ellen Barry OCTOBER 27, 1997: The president of the second colony of Virginia died an unpleasant death. Coastal Maine had not turned out to be tropical, as he had somehow expected, and the winter of 1607 is recorded as savage. The firewood was too green to burn, and inside their wattle-and-daub huts the men were fighting like polecats. With the French to the north and the Indians to the west and a near-mutinous second-in-command, George Popham was dying surrounded by hostiles. Snow was falling in very great abundance. But Popham gritted his teeth and thought of posterity. John Abbott's 1875 History of Maine records his last words along these lines: "I die content. My name will always be associated with the first planting of the English race in the New World. My remains will not be neglected away from the home of my fathers and my kindred." He was wrong on both counts. Within a year, Popham's men would pack their bags and scrap the whole America scheme -- "their interest in the undertaking was of the slightest kind," wrote the historian Henry Burrage in 1914. Back in England, they would report that America was "over cold, and in respect of that not habitable by our nation." The Pilgrims would walk away with the credit for settling New England, and Popham's bones would end up in an unmarked grave, possibly under a parking lot. It would prove just another disappointment for George Popham, spectacular loser to Miles Standish in the horse race for historical standing. But after 400 years of deepening obscurity, things began to look up for George Popham three weeks ago, when Jeffrey Brain, an archaeologist affiliated with the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, dug up the floorboards of Popham's storehouse. Locals always knew about the colony -- none of them really required any proof -- but no archaeologist had ever found one piece of hard evidence linking the Popham story to a point in time or space. Until now. With the dig over until next year, Brain returned to his Salem office in a state of high excitement. Because the colony was abandoned, the discovery will allow Brain to scientifically recreate the conditions of 1608. With access to evidence rather than the contradictory historical accounts, he will be able to clarify the 400-year-old mystery of why Popham failed. Most important, Brain's discovery will reinject this story into the historical record. The colony predated Plymouth by 13 years and was peopled by speculators who hoped to form a trade network. To them, America was a source of portable goods, pure and simple. Ultimately, Popham upsets the traditional narrative of settlement: that of pilgrims hoping to build a more ideal state. So when he dug through to those floorboards, it was a big moment. For the remainder of the article: http://weeklywire.com/ww/10-27-97/boston_feature_4.html