History Globe. In 1606, some 105 adventurers set off from England to try and establish the first permanent English colony in the New World.
They settled in what is now the state of Virginia and called their colony first James Fort, and then James Towne, in honor of James I, the King of England. The early years of the colony were nearly a total disaster. Jamestown Rediscovery. The Far East has its Mecca, Palestine its Jerusalem, France its Lourdes, and Italy its Loretto, but America's only shrines are her altars of patriotism - the first and most potent being Jamestown; the sire of Virginia, and Virginia the mother of this great Republic. -- from a 1907 Virginia guidebook In June of 1606, King James I granted a charter to a group of London entrepreneurs, the Virginia Company, to establish a satellite English settlement in the Chesapeake region of North America.
By December, 104 settlers sailed from London instructed to settle Virginia, find gold, and seek a water route to the Orient. Jamestown Settlement. Jamestown Settlement is a living history museum operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
It is located near the site of Jamestown, the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America, founded on May 14, 1607.[1] The museum is adjacent and complementary to Historic Jamestowne on Jamestown Island, which is the actual historic and archaeological site where the first settlers landed and lived that is run by the National Park Service and Preservation Virginia. Both sites at Jamestown are linked linked by the bucolic Colonial Parkway with the other two points of Virginia's Historic Triangle, Colonial Williamsburg, and Yorktown. Background[edit] Late in the 19th century, Jamestown became the focus of renewed historical interest and efforts at preservation.