Harry Montgomery wrote: This has been so interesting, Lee and Harry: If these early colonists had only moved further inland, they may have had a more successful settlement and saved many of their settlers. Their problem seemed to be one of ignorance and lack of medical knowledge, which is understandable for those times. I wonder if the Indians kept them confined to the coast. Have you read anything about that, Harry? I'm afraid that I, like many others, use my research time for topics of interest and help for my own families and their times. I have done a lot of medieval research but havn't covered this area and this subject. You have shown us, once again, there is more to genealogical research than names and dates. If you don't understand the times and their problems, how can you understand the people? Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink - seems that comes from the middle of the sea, but seems to apply here. I can understand how they would be afraid to drink the water. Even their wells were salted? Very interesting! Norma > 1607, Lyon Gardiner Taylor,ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, > 1606-1625. > II-". . .our men were destroyed with cruell diseases, as Swellings, > Flixes, Burning Fevers, . . ." p.97, Travels & Works of Capt. John > Smith, President of Virginia and Admiral of New England, 1580-1631, > Edward Arber & A.G.Bradley, eds. Edinburgh, 1910. > III-Wyndham B.Blanton, "Epidemics, Real & Imaginary, and Other Factors > Influencing Seventeenth Century Virginia Population," Bulletin of the > History of Medicine, XXXI, 1957. > IV-Edward C.Raney, "Freshwater Fishes," in The James River Basin, > Past, Present, & Future, Virginia Academy of Science, James River > Project Committee, Richmond, Va., 1950. > V-". . . actual causes of death-typhoid, dysentery, & perhaps salt > poisoning." John Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America, Baton > Rouge,La., 1953. > VI-"Our drinke [was] cold water taken out of the River, which was at a > floud verie salt, at low tide full of slime & fieth, which was the > destruction of many of our men." Observation of Master George Percy, > Narratives of Early Vir. 1606-1625. > VII-" . . . The ebb tide, though less saline, was very turbid, > organically polluted, and deadly. The trapped pathogeny of typhoid & > dysentery, thus floated back and forth past Jamestown with the summer > tide. The danger from contaminated water faded in Sept. River > discharge increased, pushing the salt incursion & its deadly > associated downstream toward Hog Point." The First English Towns of > North America, Geographical Review, LXVII, Carville Earle. > VIII-" . . . the annual summer invasion of saltwater up the James > River that contaminated the Jamestown water supply." Environment, > Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia. Carville V.Earle. p.104. > IX-" . . . Highest discharge customarily comes in the spring, and > pushes the saltwater to its seaward maximum; on the James the retreat > is to Hog Point . . ." ibid., p.105. > For further reading and research on the subject of the James River > salt and death happening at early Jamestown, the following material > and authors may be of worth to all Augusta 'listers': Philip > L.Barbour, 'The Three Worlds of Capt. John Smith, Boston, 1964. > Richard L.Morton, 'Colonial Virginia: The Tidewater Period, 1607-1710, > Chapel Hill, N.C., 1960. Darrett B, and Anita Ratman, 'Of Agues & > Fevers: Malaria in the Early Chesapeake,' WMQ, 3rd Ser. XXXIII, 1976. > The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century, eds Thad W. Tate & David > L.Ammerman, 1979. Maynard M.Nickols, 'Sediments of the James River > Estuary, Virginia Geological Society of America, 1972. > > I stand by my early outline. > Harry.