Thus, the first fort site of 1607, of
which no trace has been found on land, is thought to have been eaten
away, together with the old powder magazine and much early 17th-century
property fronting on the river.
In a series of extensive tests for any possible trace of the 1607 fort
still remaining on land, several incidental discoveries of importance
were made. One was an Indian occupation site beneath a layer of early
17th-century humus, which, in turn, was covered by the earthen rampart
of a Confederate fort of 1861. This location is marked today by a
permanent "in-place" exhibit on the shore near the old church tower.
Here, in a cut-away earth section revealing soil zones from the present
to the undisturbed clay, evidence of 350 years of history fades away
into prehistory.
Within the enclosure of this same Confederate fort was found a
miraculously preserved pocket of 17th-century debris marking the site of
the earliest known armorer's forge in British America.
Just beyond, upriver, lie ruins of the Ludwell House and the Third and
Fourth Statehouses. In 1900-01, Col. Samuel H. Yonge, a U.S. Army
Engineer and a keen student of Jamestown history, uncovered and capped
these foundations after building the original seawall.
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