John Smith’s Travels on the Potomac River

Engraving of Captain John Smith

John Smith is usually remembered for his leadership role in establishing the Jamestown settlement as well as his often-legendary connection to Pocahontas.  Many are unaware that before he became the third President of the Jamestown colony, he and fourteen men traveled up the Potomac River in search of a passage to East India and

“a glistering metal, the savages told us they had from Patawomack.”

In June of 1608, Smith and his men embarked on their voyage to explore the Chesapeake Bay in the Discovery Barge, an open-air 2 to 3-tun vessel which could be sailed or rowed.  The barge is believed to have been wooden, rib-framed and 30 feet long with no cabin for protection. Historians suggest that the barge (or shallop) was brought to Jamestown in sections on the Godspeed and the Susan Constant and assembled upon arrival.

Compass Rose and Illustration of from Smith’s Map

Smith kept such detailed records of his travels, that 410 years later we know the names of his fourteen crew members and the roles that they played in the journey. Six of the men were listed as “Gentlemen” who likely had some military experience and were familiar with firearms.  They were:

  • James Bourne,
  • William Cantrill,
  • Richard Fetherstone,
  • Thomas Momford,
  • Ralph Morton,
  • Michael Sicklemore

The other men had more specific roles in keeping the boat and their fellow explorers in good shape. At least four of the men (Small, Read, Todkill and Profit) had arrived in Jamestown as original colonists.

  • Doctor: Walter Russell
  • Fish Merchant (knew edible fish): Richard Keale
  • Tailor (to sew clothes and sails): John Powell
  • Carpenter: Robert Small
  • Blacksmith:  James Read
  • Laborer/Soldier:  James Watkins
  • Soldier:  Anas Todkill
  • Fisherman/Sailor: Jonas Profit

By the time John Smith and his crew entered the Potomac, they had explored much of the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay and had travelled down the Western shore, passing the Patapsco and Patuxent Rivers.  Historians reconstructing Smith’s explorations suggest that he spent June 20-July 1 in the upper Potomac between Occoquan and the Falls, traveling through the area that would later house Mount Vernon, Fort Washington, the City of Alexandria and the District of Columbia.

Key from John Smith’s Map of Virginia

In addition to keeping a journal, Smith also created a map of the region. He documented the land, waterways, and native villages he encountered. Smith’s map is impressively precise given the tools at his disposal. It is an invaluable piece of Virginia history as the only seventeenth century record of Virginia Indian tribes and their locations.  Although the orientation with West at the top and North to the righthand side of the map is disorienting to the modern eye, the map’s physical features and places can be reasonably connected to our modern landscape.  The National Park Service has a webpage where you can compare John Smith’s Map of Virginia to a current map of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. The key for Smith’s map gives us some insight into villages he encountered.  He used a house symbol to indicate a larger settlement where a werowance or “king” resided.  A dot within a circle denoted a smaller community.

Smith’s account of his time north of the Occoquan is quite brief. He used just a few sentences to describe a trip that took him 4 weeks from June 18-July 16, 1608. The explorers sailed or rowed the discovery barge up the Potomac as far as Little Falls (just north of Chain Bridge) stopping at the native villages along the way.

They met the Nacotchtank, the Taux (Toag) and the Moyaone who lived along both shores of the river.  The three groups were part of a Conoy chiefdom, a confederacy of Algonquin speakers who were thought to be largely outside the influence of Powhatan. Smith reported that these three tribes treated him without the hostility that he had experienced elsewhere in his explorations.

“The like incounters we found at Patomomeck, Cecocawonee, and divers other places: but at Moyaones, Nacotchtant and Toags the people did their best to content us.”

The village of Tauxenent was located on or near the Occoquan river.  Smith estimated the number of Taux people (referred to as the Doegs by 1660), at 130-170 with 40 of them being bowmen or warriors. On the north shore of Dogue Creek, possibly between Mount Vernon and the Grist Mill, resided the small village Namissingakent.  Assaomeck was on the South bank of Great Hunting Creek, likely in the area of Belle Haven Park, Marina and Country Club. Namoraughquend, another small village, was near what is now Teddy Roosevelt Island.

Native Villages in the Mount Vernon area are to the right of the letter A and below the letter N. Note the cross on the opposite side of the river from the letter N. It denotes the furthest point of Smith’s travels.

The village of Nacotchtank was located at the mouth of the river that bears an anglicized version of it’s name: Anacostia. Smith estimated that there were 80 able men at this site. Smith documented another large village of approximately 100 people, Moyaone, which sat across the Potomac from the present location of the Mount Vernon estate.  It was home to the Piscataway Conoy people who still maintain a presence in Southern Maryland.  In 2012, the Piscataway received long sought-after state recognition as a Native American Tribe.

When Smith and his company reached the head of navigation at Little Falls, they exited the river and travelled on foot to Great Falls where they traded with native people and investigated rocks which appeared to have deposits of gold dust.

“Having gone so high as we could with the bote, we met divers Salvages in Conowes, well loaden with the flesh of Beares, Deere, and other beasts, whereof we had part, here we found mighty Rocks, growing in some places above the grownd as high as the shrubby trees, and divers other solid quarries of divers tinctures: and divers places where the waters had falne from the high mountains they had left a tinctured spangled skurfe, that made many bare places seeme as guilded.  Digging the growne above in the highest clifts of rocks, we saw it was a claie sand so mingled with yeallow spangles as if it had beene halfe pin-dust.”

View from The Chain Bridge looking toward Little Falls of the Potomac

After exploring our area, Smith sailed back down the Potomac exiting the mouth around July 16th and returning to Jamestown on July 21st.  While Smith’s map provides us a snapshot in time of the locations of native villages, archaeological investigations have produced evidence of habitation at a variety of locations along both shores of the Potomac in our area.

Tauxemont, the first suburban development in the Mount Vernon area, founded in 1941, took its name and those of a couple of streets from the people and villages that Smith encountered.  Although the spelling differs from the Smith maps, the connection is easy to see.  One village name was apparently too long for a street sign and so is split in two. As you drive south on Fort Hunt Road approaching the Hollin Hall Safeway, you will first pass Namassin Rd on your left, followed quickly by Gahant Rd. memorializing the village on Dogue Creek, Namissingakent, visited by John Smith and his crew of fourteen in 1608.

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