Something to think about

Your roots may link you to America earlier than you think !

Background fact

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/2007_james.html

Four hundred years ago, at the end of 1606, three ships set sail from what is now Virginia Quay in London.
Five months later, on 14 May 1607, the 105 men on board the Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant
arrived at the site on the east coast of America where they would establish the first permanent English
settlement on that continent. Some would say the first footing of the British Empire.
They named it Jamestowne, after James I, who was king of England at the time.

Speculation follows >>>>

The first British wireworks were set up at Tintern, Monmouthshire in 1567-8. ( Whitebrook works was built in 1607 )

Iron for these works probably came from the Forest of Dean.

One of the "venture capitalists" behind the venture - the Virginia Company of London - was a London man by the name of Martin.

He had mining interests in the Tintern/ FoD area. Two early settlers Morrell (?) and Williams possibly came from Tintern. There is also an "ap Hughs" in the first wave of settlers ( second supply), clear Welsh connection.

The Spanish had been returning from South America to Europe with Gold, the Virginia Company was most likely looking for Gold, so mining would have been a skill to take with you.

The water well in the first fort built in Jamestown is rectangular in cross section, in a similar fashion to the way mines were sunk.

So were FoD men in that first wave of settlers - recruited as miners - and is their legacy the water well at Jamestown fort ? One day we may know

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Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>