May 14, 1607

Jamestown, Virginia

Jamestown settlers begin building James Fort

14 May was less a ceremonial founding than a work order: every man went ashore, some to build and others to keep armed watch.

Chosen on the 13th, landed on the 14th

George Percy recorded that the expedition reached its chosen 'seating place' in Paspahegh country on 13 May 1607. On 14 May all the men were put ashore; some began fortification work while others stood guard.

They had rejected Archer's Hope because the ships could not anchor close to shore. Jamestown offered six fathoms of water beside the anchorage and an inland, defensible position.

The first night

Around midnight on that first night ashore, Indigenous people approached the new English camp by water.

The guards raised an alarm and the visitors withdrew; there was no clash.

The three ships that had brought them — Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery — carried approximately 144 settlers, sailors, men, and boys.

Whose land it was

The English were occupying land inside Paspahegh territory; Percy himself called it 'Paspihas Country.' Archaeological evidence indicates Jamestown Island had been used seasonally by Native people for centuries, even though no permanent village stood at the fort site in 1607.

The triangular fort itself was not finished until 15 June. And the recorded date is Old Style English — 14 May corresponds to 24 May in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, though historians normally keep the contemporary form.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

Percy's contemporary chronology places arrival at the site on May 13 and the landing of all men and beginning of fortification work on May 14. Some NPS summaries therefore use May 13 as the founding date, while the Library of Congress and other accounts commemorate May 14.
England still used the Julian calendar in 1607. The recorded May 14 is an Old Style English date, equivalent to May 24 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar; historians normally retain the contemporary English date.