Beautiful sunny weather greeted the Fall Meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Company took place on October 15, 2011, at the Bayne Center at Historic Christ Church near Irvington. Members convened at 10:30 a.m., following the Executive Board meeting. Members

The speaker was Susan Godman Rager, current and past Governor of the Chesapeake Bay Company, who also serves as Webmaster for this website and for the Jamestowne Society's website, and who currently serves on Jamestowne Society Council.

Note: The photograph above, that of the replica of the "Susan Constant" at Jamestown Settlement Park, is available to be sent free as an e-card - click here for the link to do that. What follows is a recap of the talk, "17th Century Weather: Life Before the Weather Channel":

While the voyage of the original "Susan Constant" was relatively uneventful in 1607, the voyage in the summer of 1609 which included the "Sea Venture" was quite different. A weather extreme which was unanticipated and which almost took the lives of the passengers and crew was a formidable Atlantic hurricane which captured the small vessel after it was separated from others in its fleet and catapulted it on a wild ride. More about that later.

One of the factors which obviously affected the sailing date of the original Jamestowne fleet was the Great Winter, as it was known, in London. The three ships which were the original fleet that arrived on May 13, 1607, were but three of many ships and vessels in the docks area at Blackwall, London, a busy port. What complicated shipping in the Great Winter was an uncharacteristic freeze which immobilized shipping in the early part of December; a thaw began in mid-month, and the three ships began their journey on December 20, 1606. This was fortuitous, because the freeze hardened again on December 21 and would remain in place until mid January.

A significant weather feature of the times was known as the Little Ice Age. In the period between 1485 and 1602, England had much lower temperatures than it did in earlier centuries. The peak of this effect occurred in the British Isles between 1550 and 1700, which coincided with the early colonization period in North America. While even today, the temperatures of the British Isles tend to be more muted and less extreme than those faced in Virginia, most of us marveled at the complexity and the layers of the clothing English colonists wore, which were only slightly moderated for the Virginia climate.

Weather in the seventeenth century was certainly more perplexing than it is today. In the first place, the instruments and the science which would perfect consistent measurements, therefore allowing standardized predictions, had not been invented yet. Efforts were being made in the 1600s, but not until Daniel Fahrenheit's work in the 1700s was there, first, a standard degree measurement, and with his manufacture of instruments which were standardized, the first standard instruments were made available. Based on those developments, other weather instruments were developed, and the science of weather prediction had a foothold.

Back to the big three of weather in the 1600s - drought, cold and storms. While there were some drought intervals in England during the 1590s, notably there was a prolonged and pronounced drought which affected the little colony of English at Roanoke Island in North Carolina in the 1580s, and another, between 1606 and 1612 at Jamestowne, which likely caused the Starving Time, or at least made its effects more pronounced.

The third category of significant weather phenomena affecting the colonization in America was storms, specifically the large powerful Atlantic storms known as "hurricanos" to the few English sailors who would have survived their effects on earlier voyages to the West Indies.

Several hurricanes were notable enough to be recorded in the 100s in Virginia, the most notable of which may be the Dreadful Hurricane of 1667 (which is how it is recorded in history, with that exact name). It followed the track of a much later August 1933 hurricane which also devastated Virginia. The 1667 behemoth is credited with toppling 10,000 houses, beating crops into the ground, and drowning of cattle in rivers and bays because of a twelve-foot storm surge.

The first blush most onboard the Sea Venture had ever had with a "hurricano" began on Monday, July 24, 1609, when they were but a week out from Jamestowne. Already weeks out from England, they would have anxiously been awaiting their arrival in the new colony when the weather began to change. The "Sea Venture" would become the model for William Shakespeare's "The Tempest," molding the English mind with an indelible impression of the voyage, although, as we saw, nothing quite as dramatic as the real thing.

The talk on "17th Century Weather: Life Before the Weather Channel" ended with a dramatic reading of the pages of "A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's 'The Tempest.'" The book, by Hobson Woodward, and published by Viking Press in New York in 2009, is a skillful and intense recreation of the journey of the beleaguered ship, including its passage through (and bare survival of) the massive hurricane which dragged it on its way to the Central Atlantic. Simply by chance was the small boat pulled close enough to Bermuda to make a beaching there and the eventual survival of passengers and crew a reality.Woodward's book is a combination of the chronology as recorded in detail by passenger William Strachey, with comments from fellow passenger Silvester Jourdain and other members of the crew on board. He recreates the fury and intensity of the hurricane in such detail that only those readers who have experienced the power of "The Perfect Storm," a recounting of a recent hurricane in the North Atlantic, can relive.

Our ancestors were all hardy sorts, and had to be, by virtue of the challenges in their new environment. After reliving the experience of the "Sea Venture," it will truly amaze you that there are descendants from the early Jamestowne settlers, particularly those on board the "Sea Venture." In the room on October 15, there were at least two descendants from Sir George Yeardley, who was a passenger who survived and later arrived at Jamestowne aboard a succcessor ship built on Bermuda by using salvaged pieces and some equipment from the original "Sea Venture."

For those interested in purchasing the book or borrowing it from the library, here is its information: Woodward, Hobson: "A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'" (New York: Viking Press, 2009). The ISBN is 978-0-670-02096-6. It is also available in Kindle Edition from Amazon.com, and can be downloaded to your Kindle or iPad wirelessly in a few seconds. (Something our early ancestors could only dream of!).

After a luncheon replete with good food and lively conversation, the Company disbanded. Our Spring Meeting will be announced online and with written invitations which are mailed to Company members. We hope you will join us. We work hard at making the Chesapeake Bay Company an interesting place to visit, with date-specific and place-specific topics that you won't hear anywhere else!