Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/540

 control of the affairs of Jamestown, was to build a number of houses which are described as well protected against the encroachments of the severest weather. Their roofs were covered with boards and the sides of some were defended by Indian mats; and yet in spite of the apparently substantial character of these dwellings, Sir Thomas Dale, when he reached Jamestown in the following year, after Delaware had been forced by bad health to withdraw from the Colony, was compelled to order the inhabitants to repair the church and storehouse at once, for fear that if this was longer deferred, the roofs and walls would tumble down on their heads. He was not content with rebuilding the old structures at Jamestown and adding to their number a munition house, a house in which to cure sturgeon, a cattle-barn, and stable; after some time devoted to a search for a site, he decided besides to establish a town on the neck of land which has in a more recent period been changed into an island by the digging of the Dutch Gap Canal. Here he first enclosed a plat of seven acres, raising at each corner a watch-tower. He then built a wooden church and several storehouses and laid off three streets, on the line of which framed dwellings were erected, with the first story of brick. Five houses were also built upon the verge of the river, and these were occupied by tenants who acted as sentinels for the approaches to the town by water. The erection of a hospital to contain four score rooms and beds seems to have been begun. According to Hamor, Henricopolis, the name given to the new town in honor of Prince Henry, presented at the end of four months