Up-River Venture

On May 21, 1607, a week after establishing Jamestown, Christopher Newport led a small band of colonists, including John Smith, up the James River under orders from the Virginia Company of London to discover the river above them. On this first of more than a dozen expeditions up the James, they visited the Indian town of Powhatan, near the river, of which Smith wrote that Powhatan's great emperor took his name. In this part of the James, the waters were important fisheries, especially when anadromous fish such as striped bass and sturgeon came from the sea to spawn in fresh waters. Smith wrote that Newport, he, and twenty-two others set forward to discover the river some fifty or sixty miles, finding the country on each side for the most part plain high ground with many fresh springs, and the people in all places kindly entreating them. In a brief listing of Algonquian words learned from the Powhatan, Smith included "Copotone" for sturgeon. Once plentiful in the James and a staple for natives and colonists alike, sturgeon virtually disappeared by the 20th century, though recent spottings indicate they are returning to historic spawning sites near the falls. The smooth waters below the falls of the James have long attracted fishing for sustenance in the time of the Powhatan and for recreation in more recent times.

Richmond, Virginia · United States