mforting the men in discouragement and,
at the same time carrying on the perpetual cycle of child bearing, was
an immeasurable contribution. They braved the unknown to be at the sides
of their mates and, as the prospering colony during the passing years of
the century increased their responsibilities and burdens, they readily
assumed the new tasks. Not least among these was that of household
executive: managing servants, seeing that they as well as the family
were clothed, fed and attended in their sicknesses, supervising
spinning, weaving, garment making and generally maintaining a hub for
the operation of plantations ranging from 100 acres to those of several
thousands.

To the Englishman, the basis for wealth and position was a large landed
estate. News from Virginia had spread the information that great fertile
lands, sparsely inhabited by the natives, were available. Thus, valid
expectations sent the women thither, some with their husbands, some to
join their husbands, some to follow their sweethearts and, by 1620,
some to find husbands among the men who were toiling to establish the
Colony firmly and longing for the comforts of their own firesides.

The first wedding in Virginia took place in 1608, not long after the
arrival of Mrs. Forest and her maid, who, as may be surmised, did not
long remain a maid. John Laydon, who had come as a laborer in 1607, took
her, a girl fourteen years old, then of marriageable age, for a bride.
In 1625, they were living with their four daughters in Elizabeth City
Corporation.

THE FIRST HOMES

The Laydon marriage probably had taken place in the rough little church
built at Jamestown within the stockade, which enclosed also the first
houses of the settlers along with a guardhouse and a storehouse. The
stockade, actually a triangular fort built as protection against the
natives, was erected of a succession of upright logs, some twelve feet
in height and sharpened to a point. The small buildings within,
patterned after the simple homes of the peasantry in England, were built
of available material. Beams were cut from the trees in the forests
close by, the timbers being held together with pegs. The uprights were
interwoven with osiers or stout vines and, on these wattles, was daubed
the clay and mud found in the surrounding area, which the colonists had
mixed with reeds from the marshes. Coatings of this applied both outside
and inside, when dry, made thick, though perhaps fragil