Under an Act of the General Assembly passed in 1636[1] a lot sufficiently extensive in area to furnish room for a house and garden was granted, at an annual rental to the King of one copper, to every person settling at Jamestown.[2] This Act, which was renewed in 1638, seems to have accomplished in a measure its object. For the length of half a mile along the river bank, not a foot of ground remained unappropriated as a site for a private residence. Nevertheless, only twelve houses and stores were erected. The number included a residence of brick for Secretary Kemp, of such solid and uniform construction that it was pronounced to be the finest house, public or private, as yet built in the Colony. His example led others to erect framed houses. It was at this time that a large amount of tobacco was contributed for the building of a brick church. It appears that the design aroused very general interest, for the contributors to it included masters of ships and planters who lived in other parts of the Colony, as well as residents of Jamestown.[3] A levy was also ordered for the purpose of erecting a state-house and repairing the fort at Point Comfort, and it was to secure mechanics for these public works that Menefie’s visit to England in 1638 was undertaken. The state-house when completed was forty feet in length and twenty feet in width.[4] It was constructed of brick. There is no evidence that at this time
- ↑ See Va. Land Patents, vol. 1623-1643, p. 689.
- ↑ Governor Harvey and Council to Privy Council, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. X, No. 5; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1638, p. 54, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 57.
- ↑ On each side of the state-house there was a building of the same length and width. The three structures came into possession of Henry Randolph, who in 1671 conveyed the middle one to Nathaniel Bacon, Sr.; the second to Colonel Thomas Swann; and the third to Thomas Ludwell. See General Court Rule Book, No. 2, pp. 155, 617, Robinson Transcripts, p. 258.
