In 2002, archaeologists uncovered an isolated grave just outside the log wall of a fort built on an island in the James River almost four centuries earlier. Who was buried there?
The weight of all the evidence pointed to one man—Captain Bartholomew Gosnold! Investigators compiled the clues from the bones and burial and then looked at supporting evidence. Historical sources note that four prominent men died during the first years of the Jamestown colony. All were in their early thirties. Each might have been the man in this grave. But firsthand accounts of a captain’s death in 1607 seemed to best fit the grave’s location immediately outside the fort in the “parade ground,” the gabled coffin, and the captain’s staff buried with the coffin.
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold died after a three-week illness, only three months after the colonists landed. Such a quick illness would not have shown up in the skeleton. If it is Gosnold’s body in the grave, that would explain why no cause of death was apparent in the well-preserved remains.
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold died after a three-week illness, only three months after the colonists landed. Such a quick illness would not have shown up in the skeleton. If it is Gosnold’s body in the grave, that would explain why no cause of death was apparent in the well-preserved remains.