Archaeology and the Birth of the American Chemical Enterprise

An archaeologist excavates a well at Jamestown. Courtesy of APVA Preservation Virginia.

By Robert D. Hicks

Popular history has it that the fledgling Roanoke colony, a settlement of over 100 English men, women, and children in modern North Carolina, disappeared four centuries ago—a mystery that remains unsolved. A few decades later, the story goes, the Indian princess Pocahontas saved the life of Captain John Smith, leader of a band of English settlers at Jamestown, Virginia. From behind the popular history a new narrative is emerging, one based on the archaeological excavations at two locations: the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, where Roanoke colonists built a fort, and Historic Jamestowne and Jamestown National Historic Site, the two adjacent modern properties occupying ground along the James River in Virginia, where colonists built the James Fort of 1607. The archaeological evidence, coupled with a reexamination of the historical record, points to early Virginia as the birthplace of the American chemical enterprise.

Centuries ago Virginia, which in Smith’s day stretched from Spanish Florida to modern Canada, was the point of intersection for many interests, from the English ambition to create chemical industries involving glass, metals, and perfumes to an Indian trading empire that highly valued copper. The English ambitions ushered in another European presence, Germans and Poles, who served as glassblowers, miners, apothecaries, and chemical practitioners. Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered evidence of these intersecting interests in early Virginia, in the form of tools and apparatus for detecting, identifying, and processing natural resources for commercial purposes.

Commercial and scientific ambition was an impetus for discoveries and innovations among varying groups in the New World. The settlements at Roanoke and Virginia produced several North American firsts, including the earliest known piece of European chemical glassware, the first Jewish colonist, the earliest site of experimental inquiry, and, of course, the first permanent colony of English-speaking peoples. Jamestown not only continued Roanoke’s efforts to explore the potential of natural resources with chemical experimentation but also created a glassworks, North America’s first chemical enterprise.

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence at several early settlement sites showing that European scientific inquiry flourished in the New World. Yet to better understand this evidence, archaeologists and scholars turn to clues from similar excavations in Europe. At most European archaeological sites related to chemical work, such artifacts as dull glass or ceramic fragments suggest use in distillation or fire assay (testing metals for commercial viability). The abundance of tools for distillation should not be surprising since alcohol-rich substances were produced for a variety of purposes, such as medicines and perfumes (see p. 40). Recent archaeological analysis at European settlement sites in North America, however, has focused on the material remains of fire assay, specifically the humble crucible and other ceramic vessels. We now know that most European crucibles and other ceramics found in North America were made in Germany to a very precise tolerance in order to stand high heat, remain chemically inert, and serve dependably for repetitive processes under like conditions. Colonists brought with them the best available apparatus. Taken as a whole, the archaeological evidence speaks to a colonial a leadership adept at mathematical learning, including astronomy and surveying, with practical skills in mining, metallurgy, and medicinal arts.

Antecedents to Virginia: Frobisher's Voyages

Artifacts in Europe and in North America offer clues to the methods and ambitions of settlers in the New World. The Englishmen who planned chemical investigation and exploitation of the natural resources at Roanoke and Jamestown had a predecessor in Martin Frobisher, one of Queen Elizabeth’s “sea dogs,” who participated in the fight against the Spanish Armada, explored what he believed to be the Northwest Passage, and had a career in state-sponsored piracy. Between 1576 and 1578 Frobisher led three expeditions to the vicinity of Baffin Island. His final voyage, the largest-scale Arctic expedition ever attempted at the time, dispersed 100 miners to Kodlunarn Island, then known as Countess of Warwick Island. Potentially lucrative ores spotted on the first voyage were believed to bear gold or silver. The ores, probably marcasite or iron pyrite, were mined during Frobisher’s second and third voyages and taken to Bristol.

Frobisher’s voyages were characterized by astute early planning for experimental inquiry, but they ended in mining fraud with false assays. The ores proved worthless despite early claims to the contrary. Although ceramics from these sites have not been well analyzed, archaeologists have identified structures that include smithies with charcoal-stained deposits, remains of crucibles, slag, coal, and clay on Kodlunarn Island. An assay office has been identified, and contains, in addition to the aforementioned substances, firebrick and roof tiles, plus a variety of crucibles. This evidence suggests that Frobisher’s crew included experts in early chemistry and metallurgy and that the voyages were strategically planned for commercial exploitation of natural resources. In a pattern that would dominate English exploration of the New World, German mining experts managed or supervised assay work, and, as at other English settlements, German miners performed the labor. In Frobisher’s case he enlisted the Germans Jonas Schutz and Burchard Kranach as experts.

Frobisher’s preparations reflected the latest practices in chemical medicine, influenced by the 16th-century medical practitioner Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus. Medical practices on Frobisher’s voyages, with their emphasis on chemical drugs, introduced Paracelsian practices into the New World. Given the increasing acceptance of chemical compounds as remedies for illness, it is not surprising that apothecary supplies carried on Frobisher’s ships included such resins as turpentine, myrrh, mastic, alum (a styptic), and copperas, or green vitriol (an antiseptic).

Roanoke

Excitement about the possibility of establishing permanent English colonies in North America impelled Sir Walter Raleigh, a favorite of Elizabeth I, to acquire a patent for colonization in present-day North Carolina. Between 1585 and 1587 several attempts were made to establish a permanent settlement. The last was the “lost colony” of Roanoke, a village whose inhabitants mysteriously disappeared. Raleigh sent a well-esteemed natural philosopher, Thomas Hariot, on a voyage to reconnoiter the area in 1584. We can infer from Hariot’s report, which would later influence planning for Jamestown, that certain instruments were used to sample or assay local materials. Of all the substances and potential raw materials Hariot described, copper took on particular importance: he recorded the whereabouts of copper and silver from native informants and noted that he saw pieces of copper “hanging in the ears of a werowance or chief lord.” To the Algonquian Indians, copper signified a high-status ornament; it was offered to deities, it bought warriors, and it aided a journey to the afterlife. Within the Indian system of exchange, it was significant: the werowance, or tribal chief, imported copper through a trade network extending from the Atlantic coast to Lake Superior. Moreover, only the head chief could buy English copper, which he would then distribute to minor chiefs.

The Raleigh voyages landed colonists in multiple locations, but most of these sites have not been located. However, near the preserved fort at modern Fort Raleigh, the archaeologist Ivor Nöel Hume has located the first site dedicated to scientific investigation in what would become the United States. At this site stood the workshop apparently shared by Hariot and Joachim Gans, a well-known, influential German metallurgist and the first Jewish settler in English America. Born in Prague, Gans came to England in 1581 to advise government leaders on developing a British-based mineral industry. Fire-blackened bricks with a concavity recovered at the site are probably part of a furnace used by Gans. Crucibles and pharmaceutical pots were recovered nearby. Astoundingly, excavations in 1991 uncovered part of the original laboratory floor and about 60 diagnostic artifacts of chemical processes. Glass shards are from chemical glassware; remains of Indian pottery indicate distilling; other fragments come from stoneware flasks and crucibles. A recovered chunk of antimony betokens assaying as well as Paracelsian interest in the element for its putative pharmaceutical properties. Some shards contain copper residue, including copper oxide, which may have resulted from smelting Indian copper. The archaeological evidence is conclusive about the chemical investigation in Roanoke; the presence of copper attests to English interest in the metal’s commercial potential.