Housewives

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF JAMESTOWN

Written by Barry P. Foley
Copyright © 18 Mar 2023

I figured the title would get some attention!! But unlike a TV Series, this is based upon fact!
Many women came to the Jamestown Colony to marry men and start families. Some women came at a young age with their parents, others came was indentured servants. Women of the Upper Planter class, were to take care of the household, supervise the slaves, have a supporting role to her husband. However, the farmers wives had a hard life, working dawn to dusk. Indentured servants were sometimes treated no better than the slaves, were tasked with doing whatever household chores to farming deemed necessary.
Here in the best order I can find are the first of the Real Housewives of Jamestown.

The first two European women to arrive in Jamestown was the Mistress Forrest-AKA Margaret Foxe and her maid servant Anne Burras. Arriving in October 1608, aboard the ship the Mary and Margaret under Captain Christopher Newport (my 10th Great Grandfather) as part of the Second Supply. Also on the ship’s manifest, listed as a gentleman was her husband Thomas Forrest Esq.

Joan Pierce and her daughter,Jane, arrived on the Blessing in 1609. Joan’s husband William was already waiting. Thanks to Joan’s master gardening, the family survived the Starving Time. In 1619, Jane married John Rolfe after Pocahontas had passed away!

My 10th Great Grandmother, Cecily Jordan came to Jamestown in 1611 with her husband Samuel. He died 12 years later and the rest reads like a TV series. Three days after Samuel died, Reverend Pooley proposed to her and claimed that she accepted. Tad bit unethical in my book!! Later that year, she disavowed Pooley's claim by accepting suitor, William Farrar. This started the first “breach of promise suit” in English North America, which took 2 years to settle, but Cecily prevailed. She then married the very patient Mr. Farrar.

And in 1619 the first ship crossed the Atlantic with 90 English Women referred to as the Tobacco Brides and they all married colonists!!