John Smith’s 1616 Report of Cape Cod and New England

In 1614, Captain John Smith (c. 1580-1631) set out to explore and map the coastline from Maine to Massachusetts.  He published his findings in “A Description of New England” (1616), and set about touring the towns and cities in the Westcountry of England to promote settlement in the New World.

His accounts were enticing (as was his goal).  He wrote that:

of all the foure parts of the world that I ha[v]e yet seen not inhabited … I would rather li[v]e here than any where …

[If this] Land were cultured, planted and manuered by men of industrie, [j]udgement, and experience … it might equalize any of [the] famous Kingdomes [elsewhere]…

here e[v]ery man may be master and owner of his owne labour and land …. If he ha[v]e nothing but his hands, he may set up his trade; and by industrie quickly grow rich

His reports of Cape Cod and New England as a whole make it sound like paradise:

there is an incredible abundance upon this Coast ….

 [the land] is as temperate and as fruitfull as any other … in the world …

The waters are most pure, proceeding from the intrals of rockie mountains …

[There are] groues, gardens and corne fields …

the ground is so fertill, that questionless it is capable of producing any Grain, Fruits, or Seeds you will sow or plant …

[there is] an incredible abundance [of] hearbes and fruits … of many sorts and kindes: as alkermes, currans, or a fruit like currans, mulberries, vines, respices, goosberries, plummes, walnuts, chesnuts, small nuts, &c. pumpions, gourds, strawberries, beans, pease, and mayze; a kinde or two of flax …

He reports “great Lakes” and an abundance of trees:

Oke, is the chiefe wood; of which there is great difference in regard of the soyle where it groweth. Firre, pyne, walnut, chesnut, birch, ash, elme, cypresse, ceder, mulberrie, plumtree, hazell, saxefrage, and many other sorts …

all sorts of excellent good woodes for building houses, boats, barks or shippes …

As to animals:

[There are] Beues and Otters … Eagles, Gripes, diuerse sorts of Haukes, Cranes, Geese, Brants, Cormorants, Ducks, Sheldrakes, Teale, Meawes, Guls, Turkies, Diue-doppers, and many other sorts, whose names I knowe not …

 [There is] a beast bigger then a Stagge; deere, red, and Fallow; … Foxes, … Aroughconds, Wild-cats, …Martins, Fitches, Musquassus …

As to the harbors and coastline he reports that:

[for] the most part [it] so resembleth the Coast of De[v]onshire …

[there are] 25 excellent good Harbours …

[many] sandy Bayes …

salt may assuredly be made …

Carpenter, Mason, Gardiner, Taylor, Smith, Sailer, Forgers, or what other, may … fish but an houre in a day, to take more then they eate in a weeke …

[there is] greatnesse of … Herring, Cod, and Ling ... Mullet and Sturgion … Clampes … Lobsters ….crabs, and muskles .. Mackerell, Scate … Whales, Grampus, Porkpisces, Turbut, … Pearch, Eels … Wilkes, Oysters …

He also reports that there is:

Free stone for building, Slate for tiling, smooth stone to make Fornaces and Foreges for glasse or iron [& steele]

His insights into our part of the country at a time before Europeans arrived en masse are enlightening.  No wonder so many left their homelands in the decades that followed to set up a new life here.

Sources:

A Description of New England (1616)